The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 20 December 2010 15:01 Kim Yuthana
(Comments: this article confirms my statement regarding the real problem for Cambodia’s survival resulting from Vietnam continued violations of Cambodia’s borders. The main emphasis I made on that issue was the fact that Vietnam has been using the concept of movable border as the temporary border between itself and its neighbouring weaker countries (Cambodia, Laos). That was why I said that the issues raised by the Sam Rainsy Party a regarding the border markers between Vietnam and Cambodia, was a futile exercise.
Then, I pointed out that the real problem for Cambodia’s survival concentrated in the significance and the real meaning of the unequal Treaty of Cooperation, Peace, and Friendship, that was imposed on Cambodia by Vietnam during its invasion of Cambodia in 1979, and was rendered official by the signing of the supplements to that treaty in 2005 by the current king of Cambodia, Sihamoni, under pressure from his father, Sihanouk.
My observation was that the real problem was in the treaty of Cooperation, Friendship, and Peace, that was imposed on Cambodia by Vietnam, in 1979 and extended in 2005, which provides an open border for illegal Vietnamese immigrants to move into Cambodia at will and with the agreement of Hun Sen and Sihanouk. This Vietnamese link between the continous violation of Cambodia's borders and the 1979 treaty and its extension in 2005, was clearly stated by the Vietnamese deputy director of the border committee, Nguyen Hong Hao, as follows:
“Nguyen Hong Thao, deputy director of the border committee of Vietnam, said the topographic map was an important step in fully realising a border treaty signed by the two nations in 2005.
“Producing a border land map of both countries will help transform the borderlines to become cooperative, peaceful and friendly,” he said. “
Do I need to say more? Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC; December 22, 2010)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE Cambodian and Vietnamese governments announced on Friday that BlomInfo A/S – a land surveying company from Denmark – has won a contract to produce a topographic map of the countries’ sensitive shared border.
BlomInfo A/S was selected over four other surveying firms, and will enter contractual negotiations with the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments on January 10.
“This is just a bidding stage at which point the bidder has met the technical criteria,” Var Kimhong, senior minister in charge of border affairs, told reporters on Friday.
“We won’t know whether the company will accept all of our requirements or not until after the negotiation,” he said. “But if there are positive outcomes from the negotiation, we will sign the agreement and let the company start its topographic mapping project.”
BlomInfo A/S would be tasked with updating current maps – which are nearly six decades old – using GPS technology. The mapping process will conclude in August 2012 and cost US$1.5 million.
Var Kimhong said the new maps would be in line with international standards, and help the two countries avoid any potential border conflicts.
Touchy subject
Cambodia and Vietnam’s shared border has recently come under fire from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and other critics, who allege that Cambodia has ceded territory at various points along the border.
SRP lawmaker Son Chhay said on Saturday that border mapping should not begin “until all demarcation posts are planted”. Var Kimhong said that more than 200 out of 375 border posts have so far been planted.
Last week, Son Chhay led a group of SRP officials to the border in Kampong Cham province, where he said a group of Vietnamese soldiers prevented his delegation from visiting border post 103. He claimed the soldiers crossed into Cambodian territory to intercept them.
Nguyen Hong Thao, deputy director of the border committee of Vietnam, said the topographic map was an important step in fully realising a border treaty signed by the two nations in 2005.
“Producing a border land map of both countries will help transform the borderlines to become cooperative, peaceful and friendly,” he said.
Refugee centre closure linked to Vietnam PM
Wednesday, 15 December 2010 19:40 Cheang Sokha and Sebastian Strangio
(Comments: this article clearly shows who is in command in Cambodia. Certainly not the Cambodian government under Hun Sen, but Vietnam that decides what Cambodia should or should not do, when it comes to any decision regarding political issues, and especially human rights issue.
In this context, former Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was correct to point out that Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam should not have been admitted to ASEAN in the early 1990s, for the lack of sufficiently high moral standard (See the article titled “Cambodia slammed in latest WikiLeak cables” posted just below).
Finally, it should be added that if the Obama Administration still has any faith in decency and morality, they should learn from Mr. Lee Kun Yew, on how to deal with Cambodia, and especially by not being so close to the Cambodian dictator, Hun Sen, as Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are now doing.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 15, 2010))
A local rights group has linked the upcoming closure of a United Nations-administered refugee centre in Phnom Penh to the visit of a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to Cambodia last month.
The site, in Sen Sok district, now houses about 76 refugees and asylum seekers from Vietnam – members of highland ethnic minorities that rights groups say face ethnic and religious persecution by the Vietnamese government.
On November 29, the government wrote to the local office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to inform the agency that it would close the site on January 1.
The letter called on UNHCR to speed up the resettlement of 62 registered Montagnard refugees at the site, but said any unregistered asylum seekers – officials say there are “more than 10” – would be deported to Vietnam upon the centre’s closure.
In a statement yesterday, the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights said the decision to close the Sen Sok site on January 1 was “further evidence that the treatment of political refugees in Cambodia is secondary to the [government’s] political and economic prerogatives”.
CCHR compared the case to the government’s forcible deportation of 20 ethnic Uighur asylum seekers to China in December last year, which it linked to the prior announcement of a US$1.2 billion Chinese aid-and-loans package.
Similarly, it added, “the decision to close the centre and to repatriate the Montagnards comes a month after Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung led a high-ranking delegation to Cambodia”. Dung made a three-day visit to Cambodia on November 14.
CCHR called on the government to refrain from putting human lives in peril “in exchange for political capital and financial gain”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong rejected the claim. “No one has influence on Cambodia’s policy. We decided to close it down on our own,” he said.
...read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
Cambodia slammed in latest WikiLeak cables
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 15 December 2010 18:51 Sebastian Strangio
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Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew said Cambodia should not have been accepted into ASEAN due to its lack of shared values with the bloc’s founding members, according to a secret diplomatic cable released yesterday by the website WikiLeaks.
The cable, marked “confidential” and sent by the United States embassy in Singapore, documents a 2007 meeting between Lee and top American officials. At the meeting, Lee reportedly said ASEAN should not have admitted Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam as members in the 1990s.
“The older members of ASEAN shared common values and an antipathy to communism,” the cable states, describing Lee’s views.
“Those values had been ‘muddied’ by the new members, and their economic and social problems made it doubtful they would ever behave like the older ASEAN members.”
Lee, Singapore’s long-serving former prime minister, went on to say that he was most optimistic about the Vietnamese, describing them as “bright, fast learners” who would contribute to ASEAN’s development. He also said Hanoi did not wish to see China’s influence in the region become too great.
In comparison, he said, Cambodia had “not recovered yet from its difficult history and the political system is too personalised around Prime Minister Hun Sen”.
Lee also dismissed Laos as an “outpost” for China, saying Vientiane reported back to Beijing on the content of all ASEAN meetings.
The ASEAN bloc was founded in 1967 as a bulwark against the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand as members.
Vietnam joined in 1995, with Laos and Myanmar following suit in 1997. Cambodia was the last to join, in April 1999, after the July 1997 factional fighting led to a delay in its full membership.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said yesterday that he did not wish to comment on the cable’s contents.
“We have to read it carefully and try to understand it deeply. Right now, I do not want to make any comment,” he said.
A regional observer based in Singapore said Lee’s views on Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar reflected widespread fears that a “two-track” ASEAN had developed since the 1990s....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
Hun Sen’ s Consolidation – Death or Beginning of Reform?
by Steve Heder; Southeast Asian Affairs, 2005
http://khmer.cc/community/t.c?b=13&t=4117
(Comments: A very interesting excerpt from an article written by Steve Heder, a well-respected, independent Cambodian affairs scholar, on how Cambodia would be heading from then (2005) to present day. What he left out was the fact that his analysis did not even mention the fact that Hun Sen has been under the protection of the Vietnamese, since he came to power after the sack of Pen Sovann by the Vietnamese in the early 1980's, and the fact that Sihnaouk had given his full support to Hun Sen, since 1987. It is not a very optimistic view as to where Cambodia will have been moving to since 2005.
Unfortunately, events which had taken place since this article (2005) was written, have turned out to be much worse than what Heder had speculated then.
Even more interesting and telling are those comments (pasted below this article) by some Cambodians were impressive by their knowledge and appreciation of the current reality in the situation of Cambodia, especially the lack of leadership and high moral principles in our code of behivior, and above all our dependence on foreigners to save us.
No doubt, in 2010, there is more death than reform in present day Cambodia under Hun Sen/Sihanouk treacherous and corrupt regime. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 14, 2010)
The questions with which donors and diplomats are grappling indeed the crucial ones for the future of Cambodia.
Returning to where this chapter began, Hun Sen’s consolidation of power over the post (Vietnamese)-colonial state, the melding of administrative, armed and business power over which he has presided, is analogous to cases familiar to Southeast Asians.
It can be compared to similar trajectory-defining junctures that occurred in the Philippines in the late 1940s and 1950s, in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in the late 1950s and 1960s, in Indonesia in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in Myanmar since the late 1980s. In each of these cases except the last, powerful individuals, families or institutions presided over profound capitalist transformations that eventually, over periods of two to four decades, produced new socio-economic and political formations and forces that challenged, more or less successfully and in different ways, their makers.
The attractiveness of the outcomes for the peoples of these countries has depended very much on the socio-economic, political and cultural characteristics of the powerhouse at the top, but also on their relationships with the rest of society.
Nevertheless, one can see how, after almost 40 years (1954-1993) in which Cambodia was unlike post-colonial capitalist Southeast Asia, it is now – belatedly – becoming a normal such country, and one with enough of a democratic political system, however truncated, to distinguish it from the Viet Nam, Laos and Myanmar.
However, in two major ways, the comparison to 20th century, post-colonial Southeast Asian capitalist regimes must be qualified.
First, in contrast to those cases and indeed all other Southeast Asian countries, the current elite has virtually no roots in any past socio-political movement, all of which have reached a dead end and been superseded by something that came almost out of nowhere. This may explain its underlying sense of insecurity and incline it toward endless further acquisition of power and wealth.
In any case, the last surviving leaders of the anti-colonial Khmer Issarak (Communist and non-Communist), the parliamentary-liberal Democrat Party, the Sihanoukist Sangkum, and the Khmer Rouge social revolution sadly and bitterly recall that all these movements are organisationally and biologically extinct, their organisational and biological offspring having no significant political place in today’s Cambodia.[1]
Similarly, members lament that the royal family as such is finished as a independent political or economic force. It has no cohesion, political vision or autonomous economic resources, and has been completely discredited within the political elite and at the popular level by the behaviour of Ranariddh and Sirivudh.[2]
Meanwhile, many in the aging formal CPP party and parliamentary leadership[3] believe that Hun Sen’s talk of a 20-30 year coalition with FUNCINPEC are indicative of a plan to hold tenaciously on to power for that long, allowing many of them to die off or retire, while the premier and his cronies groom their intermarried children for eventual dynastic successions.
Hun Sen’s still bachelor, West Point-trained son, Hun Manet, now studying for a PhD in the United Kingdom, is seen as the heir apparent.[4]
If the baton is indeed eventually passed to Hun Manet and others like him, the kind of Cambodia they inherit will be determined not only by the relationship between his father’s entourage and Cambodian society, but by the other way in which 21st century Cambodia cannot be easily compared to previous cases: the immensely greater transformative power – for good and evil – of turbo-capitalism in the era of globalisation.
If it is not constrained by good governance, the Cambodia of the future may be a socio-economic and cultural wasteland.
If Hun Sen does not make good on his promises, then the best chance of averting catastrophe may also be one familiar to Southeast Asians: people’s power uprisings in the capital in alliance with all the political forces that the strongman has alienated on his way to the top and in keeping himself there, combined with intervention by the monarch, the international community or the church.
However, even if that happens, whether there will be anyone capable of picking up the pieces also remains to be seen.
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[1] Author’s interviewees with surviving members of each of these movements, Phnom Penh, March-November 2004.
[2] Author’s interviews with members of the Royal Family, June 2004.
[3] "Age Does Matter," Cambodia Daily, 20-21 March 2004.
[4] Author’s interview with senior CPP officials, September
2004.
Source: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeof03b/id27.html
Some selected Comments on this article by Steve Heder’s article
Cambodia.
-a land that is control by 50 families with incognito communist ideaologies.
-A former King that has a history of pleasing everybody from Pol Pot to H.S
-in house fuedal since Independance from the French
-Probably the only country that is ashame of the royal family
-Khmer killing Khmer during Pol Pot while westerners watch
-Vietnamese want the land, Siam want the culture.
-No middle class
-More temples than schools or hospital.
-Streets with communist names with communist links.
-When in trouble we run to China, N.Korea, Vietnam.
I still say some not all, cambodian lack ethics. it has and will always be about,
money, power, name, old men marrying young country virgins.
This is also a strong evidence that Cambodia for hundreds of years did not have strong minded leaders. And neither at the present do we have them from whom we may receive warm feelings when we, the ordinary citizens, are being mistreated by "not the foreigners" but the local Khmer authority who robs our small portion of lands that we inherit for many years, cuts down our forests at will, allows the foreigners, the Yuons who pay them in US dollars, to vigorously invade our fishing industry, etc...
There is no warm feelings, no hope for us the voiceless and defenseless... But they still want our votes when that time comes around.
Historically, we foolishly fought among ourselves and when we fell deep in difficult situation we ran for help only to trap ourselves in another "hard to move" situation. Worse of all when we sought help from Thailand and/or Vietnam.
I'll tell you, I find it hard to be optimistic about the future of the Khmer fate in a few decades from today. God help us.
Border mapping moves ahead
The Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 09 December 2010 15:02 Meas Sokchea
(Comments: please, find pasted below, an article titled "Border mapping moves ahead," along with my comments, that appeared in the Phnom Penh Post, dated December 12, 2010. I am glad that the Phnom Penh Post had decided to publish my comments on this very important but unknown problem to most Cambodians, inside and outside Cambodia. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 13, 2010)
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Border mapping moves ahead
The Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 09 December 2010 15:02 Meas Sokchea
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Photo by: Heng Chivoan
A woman looks at a Cambodian map during a meeting last week at the Council of Ministers to review bids for mapping the border.
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BORDER demarcation efforts between Cambodia and Vietnam advanced yesterday when a joint committee ended its evaluation of five firms in a bid to draw up the shared boundary.
The Vietnamese-Cambodian Border Affairs Committee finished its review of proposals from five firms in competition to produce a new map of the border, and will make a selection by Friday, an official said.
“We are working on a draft contract that we will sign with the firm that is awarded the contract, which will be announced by Friday at the latest”, said Var Kimhong, the senior minister in charge of border affairs.
The committee saw proposals from BLOM Geomatics AS (Denmark), IGN France International, Kokusai Kogyo Corporation (Japan), Samboo Engineering Company (South Korea) and Pasco-FINNMAP (Japan/Finland). Costs, which will be split evenly between Cambodia and Vietnam, ranged in the proposals from US$1.5 million to $4.5 million.
However, the Cambodian Watchdog Council CWC, led by Cambodian Confederation of Unions President Rong Chhun, urged Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday to postpone the delineation of Cambodia-Vietnam border posts, citing outcry by local farmers in Kampong Cham province that current border posts have ceded land to Vietnam by as much as 200 metres.
The request, submitted by letter, followed a visit by CWC delegates on Sunday to border posts Nos 108 and 109 in Memot district’s Da commune in Kampong Cham province, after 260 people had signed a petition complaining about a loss of farmland from Vietnamese border encroachment.
“To avoid losing territorial integrity, the [CWC] would like the Cambodian government to reconsider the planting of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, and wait for an international inspection to show transparency for both nations,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party yesterday confirmed plans to visit border post No109 on December 14.
“We want to see the situation because people have complained to us as representatives about the planting of border post No109 affecting their land. We will see with our own eyes, so that we can take those complaints to parliament”, SRP spokesman Kimsour Phirith said
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The newly released Burmese democracy advocate speaks about her selection as an FP Top Global Thinker of 2010.
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(Please, click on this video to listen to Aung San Suu Kyi statement on the notion of “Value change,” as opposed to “Regime change.” Can most Cambodians learn from this great and dignified leader? I would hope so. More specifically, can Sam Rainsy or Kem Sokha learn something from her? I would hope so. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 3, 2010)
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BY AUNG SAN SUU KYI | NOVEMBER 30, 2010
When FP Global Thinker Aung San Suu Kyi emerged this fall from a house arrest that had lasted on and off for two decades, the world was impatient to hear what this symbol of Burma's embattled resistance movement would have to say. Would she rage against her captors, the Burmese junta that had just days before staged its first, extraordinarily flawed election in two decades? Would she call for international intervention to end a regime that has become known for its vicious crackdowns on minority and opposition groups and a dangerously laissez-faire attitude toward the drug barons operating along its borders? Instead, the freed dissident made a remarkably levelheaded call for long-term reform of the sort that comes from within: "value change," as she put it, not regime change. And she has already begun to take action, filing papers to reinstate her political party and promising an investigation into the recent election. As she said upon her release, "We have a lot of things to do."
She also spoke directly to you, our readers at Foreign Policy magazine, in an exclusive video message commemorating her selection as a Top Global Thinker of 2010. Noting how the world has changed in the years since she was imprisoned, she reaffirms the need to keep fighting for democracy. Her words are transcribed below:
It is a great pleasure to be able to address you like this today. But of course, it would have been an even greater pleasure if I could have joined you in person. I was greatly honored to find that I had been chosen as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers. Honored, and at the same time humbled. During the last two decades, my life has swung between periods when I have ample time for thought and contemplation, and periods when I hardly had time to catch thoughts on the wing, because there was so much to do.
But in all these years, the one thought that has stayed with me is that we all have to work together to try to improve any situation. That is not an original thought; I think it's as old as humanity: that there is strength in numbers, that we must learn to help each other. But yet, that is a thought that never ages. I wish I could meet all of you to talk over all the things I have thought about over the last seven years, during which many changes took place in this world.
When I came out of detention, on the 13th of this month, I suddenly found myself in a new world, as it were. The people who came to support me, to offer me their greetings and their continued belief in our cause, were much younger than the ones with whom I had worked many years ago. A whole new generation -- or perhaps I should say, several new generations -- had joined us, and so it is a younger world. At the same time, it is a startling, stranger world because all these young people were so much more familiar with the new IT revolution than I am. And that really made me happy; it encouraged me, it invigorated me, because IT technology means simply better communications; better communications between different peoples, between different generations.
I do not know what I am supposed to have contributed to the Great Thinkers of this world. All I can say is that I stand ready to be taught, to learn, to learn from the new thinking, to learn from younger people, to learn from those who have spent the years that I have spent in detention out in the free world, seeing what is going on, and from that seeing, learning to think again. We have to think again, and again, and again, and yet, we never come to the end of our thinking. We never come to the final conclusion. That is the beauty of human nature -- that we can go on, we can keep on going forward, going upward, going outward in our minds and in our hearts.
This is not the ideas of a thinker that I am expressing to you. These are just the ideas of someone who has lived apart from most of the world for many years and has now come out to join you and to ask for your support, your help, your advice, and for your friendship.
I don't know whether this is what a Global Thinker is supposed to be saying, but whatever I have said, it comes from my heart, and I hope that you will look upon it kindly. Thank you very much.
Manila warms to China, cools on US
By Al Labita
Asia Times; Nov 17, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LK17Ae01.html
(Comments: this article show how an ex-colony, faithful and fervent friend of the United States has shifted to be more friendly to China. The question is why it is so. It is clear to most Asian leaders that the importance and the role of United States in the region has become more questionable and limited since the end of the Vietnam war. This does not mean that the American economic influence will disappear soon.
On the contrary, the United States is still the most dominant economic power in the world for many more years to come, and in Asia, especially. So, for practical reasons, the leaders of most Asian countries would want to have as normal a relation as is feasible without too much costs in terms of trade off with other countries in the world, especially with China, due to the latter country is fast becoming an economic and military power house in the world, and in Asia, in particular.
It is sad to see Mr. Obama has totally abdicated his power to comply to his secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his defense Secretary Robert Gates who are now advocating closer ties with its former enemy, Vietnam, in order to fight China’s rising power in Asia and the world (Please, read an article posted in this page titled “Obama Moral Dilemma in Vietnam”.
It is clear that most countries in Asia would want to continue to have good relations with both China and the United States, if they are not forced to choose side. However, it is sad to see how the United States under Obama’s presidency has drifted away from a promising beginning of change in its foreign policy, to now moving back to G.W Bush’s disastrous foreign policy influenced and controlled by the Neo-Cons. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 27, 2010)
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MANILA - While former United States president Bill Clinton urged the Philippines to maintain strong bilateral military ties with Washington, China was simultaneously forwarding its own brand of military diplomacy. A day after Clinton's whirlwind speaking tour in Manila on November 10, China's ambassador Liu Jianchao and senior Philippine defense officials toasted a "new era" for the military relationship.
The occasion: the handing over of big-ticket heavy construction equipment from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The donation, meant to boost the building of farm-to-market roads, bridges and public schools, was viewed by officials as a sign of China's goodwill and understanding towards Philippine forces.
Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin thanked the Chinese government "for the generous assistance that we shall treasure as a token of enduring friendship and cooperation between our two nations and peoples".
From tokens come military hardware. Beijing has a standing offer to sell at a discount 10 Harbin Z-9 combat helicopters and other modern armaments to beef up Manila's fight against Muslim insurgents in Mindanao. The equipment donated this week consisted of eight graders, two loaders, three road rollers, four backhoe loaders, three dump trucks, two road wreckers, an aerial vehicle and 10 bulldozers.
In diplomatic contrast, Clinton's visit was marred by street protests by students, denouncing him and the US for the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) sealed in 1999 between Manila and Washington. The VFA, which allows US soldiers to conduct the annual "war games" with their Philippine counterparts and maintain a consistent level of troops in the country, was sealed during Clinton's presidency.
His visit last week was also touched by a diplomatic ruckus over how Clinton's senior aide shooed away and shouted at the Philippines' second-highest government official, who waited for the former US president's arrival at the luxury Manila Hotel. Irked by the spat, Vice President Jejomar Binay told reporters he would lodge a formal complaint saying that the Clinton aide's unruly behavior smacked of disrespect and arrogance towards local hospitality.
Binay's rage over the incident aptly illustrated Manila's current resentment towards the US, particularly after it issued a travel advisory warning American nationals of possible terrorist attacks in the Philippines ahead of Clinton's visit. Taking the US's cue, other Western countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, followed suit with their own terrorism-related travel advisories for the Philippines.
Peeved by the travel advisory, which he referred to "arbitrary, unfounded and baseless," President Benigno Aquino asked the US and other countries to lift the warnings, saying they curbed unnecessarily the flow of foreign tourists and investment to the Philippines. Citing reports from the military and police, Aquino argued there was no evidence of any "clear and present" danger posed by terrorists, whether Islamic or communist, to foreign visitors.
The Abu Sayyaf, a motley band of mostly Muslim bandits, and the communist-led New People's Army have been on the run in recent years as US security forces in Mindanao back the AFP's counter-insurgency campaigns. Some 3,000 US marines have just completed their annual joint military training exercises with their AFP counterparts
Political advisory
Other senior officials, however, believed that the adverse travel advisory was deliberate Washington pressure on Manila as it begins to review the VFA amid a strong clamor by the opposition for its abrogation. In his 35-minute speech during a public forum in Manila, Clinton justified the VFA, stressing that it was of mutual benefit between the two long-time strategic allies.
"We formulated the VFA which permitted joint operations between our military and which called for greater military assistance from the United States," Clinton said. "The world is too unstable," he added, referring to both terrorist threats and rising international tensions over the disputed Spratlys islands in the South China Sea, where the Philippines has competing claims with China.
Other than exclusive jurisdiction over US troops charged with committing local crimes, Manila wants Washington to pay for the use of facilities by its military forces while in the Philippines. At Subic bay, a former US naval base situated east of Manila, officials had complained that the US has refused to pay the state-run economic zone for the use of its port and airport.
They singled out the USS Essex, an aircraft carrier which recently took part in the annual joint exercises, and other US military vessels which reportedly refused to pay berthing and harbor fees. Similarly, US aircraft had been charged landing, parking, overflight and other fees, but bucked making any payments to the state-run Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, officials said.
Subic was where a group of US Marines on rest and recreation sexually abused a Filipina and later dumped her at the sidewalk on November 1, 2005. Of those tried for rape, Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was found guilty by a lower court and was sentenced to 40 years in jail. He was eventually freed after the US invoked the VFA, which exempts US military personnel from Philippine law.
The incident kicked up a firestorm of protests in Manila at the time and continues to color the debate now raging over the VFA. Political science professor Roland Simbulan of the state-run University of the Philippines said that the VFA highly favored the US at Manila's expense. Even Manila's foreign and justice officials already prejudged the rape case by absolving the US marine before his trial began, he noted.
"The full weight and resources of the US government were mobilized in defense of the respondent," Simbulan said.
Some lawmakers, however, have cautioned the government against a knee-jerk reassessment of the VFA. The deal has allowed the Philippines to enjoy the US's regional security umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region a key deterrent against China bullying other Spratlys claimant countries
Other than its security dimensions, the VFA has also facilitated economic aid, including the US$434 million "Millennium Challenge" signed during Aquino's recent visit to the US. It aid package aims to address poverty, strengthen government institutions in fighting graft and corruption and build infrastructure projects in insurgency-hit areas.
In addition, the US has an ongoing $250 million assistance program to enable Manila to curb international human trafficking. Nearly eight million Filipinos work abroad, the bulk of them in the Middle East. US ambassador Harry Thomas told a forum of foreign journalists last month that some 40,000 to 50,000 Filipino workers may be needed to construct the US military base in Guam.
While Washington has no problem with Manila's ongoing review of the VFA, Thomas said it should be done in a "transparent manner", a reference to the Aquino government's lack of consultations with the American side. "We are temporary guests of the Philippine government. We don't have bases here. We have no construction here. We have no plans. We don't need bases here," he said
Al Labita is a Manila-based journalist.
Obama's moral dilemma in Vietnam
By The Hanoist
Asia times; Sep 30, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LI30Ae01.html
(Comments: this article shows how Obama has trade in his slogan of defending human rights and freedom in the world for the expediency in using Vietnam a partner in containing China’s rising power in the world and in Asia, in particular. The issue here is not the fact that Obama had decided to the stand up to fight China rising power, but rather the fact that he had chosen Vietnam, a communist country with horrible human rights record, as a partner of the United States to fight the rise of china’s economic and military power, as the Asian Times has observed that:
“The moral dilemma for the Barack Obama administration is how it can reconcile long-standing US support for democracy and human rights with its current realpolitik aims of winning friends and influencing states concerned by an overbearing Beijing.”
Obama seems to have lost his bearing on every issue that he so loudly proclaimed “Change, Yes, We Can,” during the 2008 presidential electoral campaign. His various speeches in different high-profile trips abroad and at the United Nations now sound so empty. One wonders whether Obama is still the same person.
This diplomatic miscalculation combined with the horrendous financial and economic problems still pervading the US economy, it is no surprise to this writer to see the huge loss that the democrats had incurred during the 2010 mid-term election. It does not bode well for this country under Obama leadership, especially when it is clear that there is more than a good chance for the return of the caveman-mentality Republicans to full control of the power in this country in 2012.
For Cambodia, during her last and recent visit to Cambodia, Hillary Clinton, had suggested that Cambodia should not move closer to China. In choosing this position, either, she does not know that it is Vietnam that is the real threat to Cambodia, and not China, or she simply does not care about Cambodia and its people. This is not the first time that the America has taken this arrogant and destructive position in Cambodia. Nixon, had done the same by bombing the eastern part of Cambodia in 1969, and by invading this country in 1970, and by doing so, had pushed the Viet Cong well inside Cambodia and had given a push for the Khmer Rouge to successfully recruit more young Cambodians to join their rank, with the full cooperation of Sihanouk?
In this context, it does not make any sense for Sam Rainsy and his followers to ask for the revival of the 1991 Paris Agreements. because this request to be supported, the United States must support this demand. Now that Vietnam is a close ally of the United States, there is no way, President Obama would agree to this demand by Sam Rainsy and his followers. Once more, I must repeat that only Cambodians can save Cambodia. But, to do so, Cambodinas must have a dedicate, smart, honest, capable, responsible, and respectable leader. At the moment there is none to be found, in or outside of Cambodia
As the great British historian Arnold Toynbee had written in his book on a Study of History of Civilizations, that empires had fallen not because of outside threats, but because of internal weaknesses and contradictions.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 24, 2010)
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As the United States deepens strategic ties with Vietnam in response to a rising China, a question now on many minds is how Washington will address Hanoi's well-documented and continuing human rights abuses. The moral dilemma for the Barack Obama administration is how it can reconcile long-standing US support for democracy and human rights with its current realpolitik aims of winning friends and influencing states concerned by an overbearing Beijing.
These two often contradictory strands of American foreign policy were manifested in the media coverage surrounding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presentations at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum held in Hanoi in July. Her public remarks before Vietnamese government leaders on upholding human rights dominated the first day's headlines.
On the following day, however, Clinton turned her focus to security matters. Her declaration that the US had a national interest in maintaining an open South China Sea and supported a multilateral solution to the maritime disputes there between China and ASEAN countries became the biggest story out of the ministerial meeting and still reverberates several months later.
United States-Vietnam watchers have witnessed a considerable warming of ties this year. A highly visible sign was the August visit by the super carrier USS Washington off the coast of Danang, not far from the Paracel Islands occupied by China since 1974 but historically part of Vietnam. Substantive cooperation is also underway in pursuing nuclear cooperation, crafting a multilateral free trade agreement, initiating US weapons sales to Vietnam's military and continuing military-political talks involving both countries' foreign affairs and defense establishments.
Part of the reason for the tighter rapport is good timing. As the 2010 chair of ASEAN, Vietnam became the public face of the regional grouping just when the Obama administration sought to re-engage with Southeast Asia. US officials have recently collaborated closely with their Vietnamese counterparts to prepare for numerous mid- and high-level meetings. Given Hanoi's Foreign Ministry's lack of experience on the international stage, US officials have reportedly played a primary, if not behind-the-scenes, role in coordinating the various US-ASEAN working groups.
The bigger reason, however, is that the US needs Vietnam to contribute toward stiffening ASEAN's spine, so that the 10-country body can collectively counterbalance China's regional ambitions. Most of ASEAN's member states have traditionally pursued an accommodationist policy toward Beijing. With its long history of repelling Chinese invasions, ingrained worries about the Sino threat, and its relative large size within ASEAN, Vietnam is uniquely positioned to rally others in the bloc.
In addition, the US would like to see Vietnam join other countries in the neighborhood - notably India, Australia, Japan and South Korea - to serve as a strategic counterweight to China. Though no US official has publicly said so, the American military also probably covets regular access to Vietnamese ports to project power into the South China Sea, where a third of the world's maritime trade flows yet which Beijing is increasingly treating as its own lake
Flagging emphasis
With face time between the leadership of the two countries always a scarce commodity, Obama recently met with Vietnamese state president Nguyen Minh Triet and other ASEAN heads in New York and the US secretaries of State and Defense will be in Hanoi in late October. The worry among some Vietnamese democracy activists is that human rights, an issue where progress was crucial for the US to re-establish normal trade relations and support Vietnam's bid to accede to the World Trade Organization, are now being relegated to the diplomatic backburner.
There are precedents for expediency. In the fall of 2004, the George W Bush administration blacklisted Vietnam as a ''Country of Particular Concern'' over serious violations of religious freedom. Two years later, the State Department removed Vietnam from the designation - not necessarily due to measurable progress on religious freedom - but to pave the way for a cordial Bush visit to Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting held in November 2006.
Human rights advocates say that such real politik calculations are short-sighted since greater political freedom in Vietnam would better suit long-term US economic and security interests in the region. To be sure, human rights has never been an all or nothing focus of US policy, and each US administration since normalization of relations with Hanoi in 1995 has set calibrations differently on the attention given to the issue.
There is a vocal human-rights lobby in congress that serves as a check on each administration's realist tendencies on foreign policy. Only a day before the US-ASEAN meeting in New York, 10 House members signed a letter calling on Vietnam's government to release activists from the pro-democracy party Viet Tan. During the summer, a congressional hearing into alleged beatings by police of Catholic worshipers in the Con Dau parish in central Vietnam prompted the US Embassy in Vietnam to conduct an investigation that is still unfolding.
In addition to congressional pressures, non-governmental organizations also shape the debate. US-based rights group Human Rights Watch recently released a report on systemic abuses by security police in Vietnam that detailed numerous cases of political dissidents and ordinary citizens suffering from police brutality and deaths in custody.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended a conference marking the 65th anniversary of communist Vietnam's public security forces at which he called on his audience to crush all opposition political groups that could threaten the Communist Party's control. The Hanoi leadership is in the midst of preparing for the 11th party congress, where political promotions and government policies will be decided in January 2011. As in the past, the run-up to this conclave has been accompanied by an intensified crackdown on political dissent.
While addressing the UN General Assembly on September 23, Obama gave his strongest statement yet in defense of the virtues of freedom: "Experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty - that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments." It is against this rhetorical backdrop and an ongoing political crackdown that Obama reaches out to Hanoi.
While US treaty allies have historically tended to be stable democracies, Washington also has a long history of partnering with authoritarian states, though with more mixed results. Obama's overtures towards Vietnam thus represent a policy risk, one influenced by his government's larger strategic concerns over China's rising clout and assertiveness.
The Hanoist writes on Vietnam's politics and people.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
China's billions reap rewards in Cambodia
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2010; 11:40 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/20/AR2010112003850.html
(Comments: this article argues from the American interests and adopted a very hostile view of the rising power of China in Asia, as a threat to American power in the world in general and in Asia in particular. It is a very counter-productive and incomplete view of the role of China in the world in general, and in Asia in particular.
The author of this article totally ignored the Centuries-old principles of international relations that China had adopted many centuries ago to guide its relations with its neighbors, which is known as the Sino-Centric Tributary system, and based on Soft power. While Americans tend to believe in the use of hard power, as in the Vietnam War, and now in the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown.
The Chinese firmly believe that however rich and powerful a country may be at a moment in time of its history, the use of hard power will always end up by loss to the big power, because there is a limit as to how far material and human resources can be wasted in warfare.
Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Pomfret missed totally a major point, as far as assessing the rivalry between China and Vietnam in the role and objective of their competition to gain influence in Cambodia. Vietnam, is the more dangerous country for Cambodia than China. China has not been interested in taking over the territory of Cambodia and physically eliminating its population and replace it by the Vietnamese people, as it had done in Champa and in Kampuchea Krom, which is simply put, a Genocide, a few centuries ago, now in the process committing the same genocide against the Cambodian people, in Cambodia proper.
In view of this historical background, Mr. Pompfret analysis of the rivalry between Vietnam and China in Asia in general, and in Cambodia in particular, is off-base by a long shot. As most Asian countries, would prefer to have a good relation with China, as defined earlier under the Sino-centric tributary system, especially with the increase in opportunities for trade and investment between China and the other Asian countries.
Also, America’s habit of relying in hard power instead of soft power by the Chinese, is no longer a feasible option for America, in view of the fact that the USA is now already bogged down very deeply in the unwinnable war in the Middle East and in view of the deep economic and financial problems that it is now in since 2007 without any ending any time soon. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 23, 2010)
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IN KOH KONG, CAMBODIA Down a blood-red dirt track deep in the jungles of southwestern Cambodia, the roar begins. Turn a corner and there is the source - scores of dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes hacking away at the earth. Above a massive hole, a flag flaps in the hot, dusty breeze. The flag of the People's Republic of China.
Here in the depths of the Cardamom Mountains, where the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge communists made their last stand in the late 1970s, China is asserting its rights as a resurgent imperial power in Asia. Instead of exporting revolution and bloodshed to its neighbors, China is now sending its cash and its people.
At this clangorous hydropower dam site hard along Cambodia's border with Thailand, and in Burma, Laos and even Vietnam, China is engaged in a massive push to extend its economic and political influence into Southeast Asia. Spreading investment and aid along with political pressure, China is transforming a huge swath of territory along its southern border. Call it the Monroe Doctrine, Chinese style.
Ignored by successive U.S. administrations, China's rise in this region is now causing alarm in Washington, which is aggressively courting the countries of Southeast Asia. The Obama administration has cultivated closer ties with its old foe Vietnam. It has tried to open doors to Burma, also known as Myanmar, which U.S. officials believe is in danger of becoming a Chinese vassal state. Relations have been renewed with Laos, whose northern half is dominated by Chinese businesses. In a speech about U.S. policy in Asia on Oct. 28, before she embarked on her sixth trip to Asia in two years, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used military terminology to refer to U.S. efforts: "forward-deployed diplomacy."
During a recent trip to Phnom Penh - the first of a U.S. secretary of state since 2002 - Clinton, while speaking to Cambodian students, was asked about Cambodia's ties to Beijing. "You don't want to get too dependent on any one country," she told them.
Still, China powers ahead.
China has concluded a free-trade deal with all 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while a similar U.S. pact is only in its infancy. It is cementing ties with Thailand - a U.S. ally - despite
recent political unrest there.
In Cambodia, Chinese firms have turned mining and agricultural concessions in Mondulkiri province in the eastern part of the country into no-go zones for Cambodian police. Guards at the gates to two of them - a gold mine and a hemp plantation - shoo travelers away unless they are able to pay a toll. "It's like a country within a country," quipped Cambodia's minister of interior, Sar Kheng, at a law enforcement conference earlier this year, according to participants at the meeting.
China's real estate development firms have barged into Cambodia with all the ambition, bumptiousness and verve that American fruit and tire firms employed in Latin America or Africa in decades past. One company, Union Development Group, of Tianjin in northern China, won a 99-year concession for 120 square miles - twice the size of Washington - of beachfront property on the Gulf of Thailand. There Chinese work teams are cutting a road and mapping out plans for hotels, villas and golf courses. The estimated investment? $3.8 billion. The target market? The nouveau riche from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Last month, China pledged to support the construction of a $600 million stretch of railway between Phnom Penh and Vietnam that will bring China a major step closer to incorporating all of Southeast Asia, as far south as Singapore, into its rail network.
Across Cambodia, dozens of state-run Chinese companies are building eight hydropower dams, including the 246-megawatt behemoth on the Tatay River in Koh Kong. The total price tag for those dams will exceed $1 billion. Altogether, Cambodia owes China $4 billion, said Cheam Yeap, a member of the
central committee of the ruling Cambodia People's Party.
"This takeover is inevitable," said Lak Chee Meng, the senior reporter on the Cambodia Sin Chew Daily, one of the country's four Chinese-language dailies, serving a population of 300,000 Chinese-speaking Khmer-Chinese and an additional quarter-million immigrants and businessmen from mainland China. "Cambodia is approaching China with open arms. It's how the United States took over its neighborhood. It's geopolitics."
The perennial question about China's rise is when will Beijing be able to translate its cash into power. In Cambodia, it already has.
Cambodia has avoided criticizing Beijing over the dams China is building along China's stretch of the Mekong River - installations that experts predict will upend the lives of millions of Cambodians who live off the fishing economy around the great inland waterway, Tonle Sap.
Cambodia so strictly follows Beijing's "one China" policy that it has refused Taiwan's request to open up an economic office here despite the many millions of dollars' worth of Taiwanese investment in Cambodia.
China's heft was also clearly on display in December when Chinese and American diplomats went toe-to-toe over the fate of 20 Uighur Chinese who had fled to Cambodia and were seeking asylum. China said that some of the men, members of a Chinese Turkic minority, were wanted for having participated in anti-Han Chinese riots in Xinjiang in July 2009. The United States said don't send them back.
China threatened to cancel a trip by its vice president, Xi Junping, who was coming to Cambodia with deals and loans worth $1.2 billion in his briefcase. So Cambodia returned the Uighurs to China. Two days later Xi, who is on track to be China's next leader, arrived in Phnom Penh.
In April of this year, the U.S. State Department announced that to punish Cambodia, it was canceling a shipment of 200 U.S. surplus military trucks and trailers. Less than three weeks later, China donated 257 military trucks.
Cambodia has also followed China's lead when it comes to the South China Sea, a 1 million-square-mile waterway that China asserts belongs to Beijing. In July, Clinton, speaking in Hanoi, challenged China's claims to the open seas and advocated a multilateral approach to divvying up the fishing rights and offshore oil and gas that the sea is believed to contain. China opposes multilateral negotiations, preferring to divide and conquer with bilateral talks. Last month, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, backed China's approach.
China's one-upmanship with the United States continued earlier this month. A day after Clinton left Cambodia, Wu Bangguo, one of China's top Communist Party officials, arrived in Phnom Penh. During her visit, Clinton had raised the possibility that the United States might forgive a portion of Cambodia's
debt to the United States; it owes $445 million. Wu was more forthright. He struck $4.5 million off Cambodia's tab; Chinese officials are considering forgiving an additional $200 million.
Only a few obstacles
China's road to domination here hasn't been without potholes. Vietnam, which ousted the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and installed Hun Sen, has woken up to the threat of increased Chinese influence and has directed Vietnamese state-owned companies to pour money into Cambodia. From $28 million in 2008,
Vietnamese investment jumped to $268 million in 2009 and to $1.2 billion this year, according to Cambodian government statistics.
The Vietnamese military runs Cambodia's No. 2 - and soon to be No. 1 - telecommunications company. Most government officials use its services because it gives them SIM cards loaded with free minutes.
But China is quick to counter Vietnam. Chinese and Cambodian officials this month signed a $591 million loan package - Cambodia's biggest ever - from the Bank of China for Cambodia's other main telecommunications company. The only catch is that $500 million was earmarked to buy Chinese equipment from the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Even Cambodia's ruler, Hun Sen, has sometimes chafed at the bearhug from Beijing. In December 2009, Chinese workers finished a massive $30 million government building where the prime minister was supposed to house his offices. But Hun Sen didn't like the place, complained about its squat toilets and the fact that "it didn't even have a proper chandelier," according to a Western diplomat. There were also concerns that China had bugged the premises. So Hun Sen built new offices next door and opened both
buildings last month.
Historical influence
China has exercised imperial sway over Cambodia for centuries. Eight hundred years ago, Chinese troops bailed out Khmer kings; friendly Chinese warriors are carved on the side of the famed 12th-century Bayon temple near Angkor Wat. In the 1950s and 1960s, Communist China embraced the regime of King
Norodom Sihanouk and provided the Khmer Rouge with inspiration, security and economic assistance throughout their bloody rule from 1975 to 1979. Sihanouk, now 88 and the king father, resides in Beijing.
Huo Zhaoguo, a Chinese manager of Union Development's massive project along the Cambodian coast, is typical of the new Chinese coming to this country. In the 1980s in Lanzhou in northwestern China, Huo struck it rich selling beans but then lost his fortune. He washed up in Cambodia in the 1990s, chasing a Vietnamese dealer who owed him money. Huo returned to Lanzhou penniless but couldn't stay. "I'd been rich there once and so everybody laughed at me," he said. "A man needs self-respect."
Huo moved back to Cambodia and opened a noodle stand. He moved up to a noodle restaurant and then met the boss of Union Development, who came to his shop searching for northern Chinese food. The boss gave Huo a chance at Union, and now Huo is overseeing road construction. Union got the land
because it had the cash and the connections, Huo said.
"This country is too poor and the corruption is the same as China," he observed. "If you have power here, you have a great future."
"Cambodians feel no pressure to succeed. They even take weekends off. Not us," he said, with the air of colonial supremacy you hear from many Chinese in Cambodia. "We work."
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
Regional ACMECS declaration issued
The Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 18 November 2010 15:01 Thomas Meventsiller and Vong Sokheng
(Comments: this article appears to be so positive for all five countries of the regional grouping known as - Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS). Because, it highlighted only the cooperative and positive aspects between members of this group without looking at the other side of coin.
But, what it did not convey is the hidden agenda of Vietnam vis-à-vis Cambodia and Laos. One of those main hidden items in the Vietnamese agenda, as Hun Sen had said is to characterize this group as the so-called “Rice Bowl of the world.”
But, everyone who had followed the current political and economic relations between Cambodia and Vietnam know perfectly well that Hun Sen had given, practically free, land to the Vietnamese to be used as rice farm and rubber plantations.
The other hidden item that this group appears to have endorsed is the non-requirement of visa to allow free flow of business and tourists between the five member countries. This new policy decision, of course, would lead right into Vietnam main strategy known as “Nam Tien,” which is to allow a free flow of illegal Vietnamese into Cambodia, unofficially amounting to about more than 4 million, today .
As I have mentioned so many times before, don’t blame the Vietnamese alone for the slow disintegration and debacle of Cambodia. The Cambodians are mostly to be blamed for this continuing major human disaster of modern history. Naranhkiri Tith, Washington DC. November 20, 2010)
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REGIONAL leaders adopted an agreement, dubbed The Phnom Penh Declaration, yesterday in a bid to help improve economic coordination across five nations.
Signed at the five-nation Ayeyaway-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS) summit held in Cambodia’s Peace Building, the declaration was signed by the leaders of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The statement recognised “the need for the ACMECS countries to redouble their efforts individually, bilaterally and collectively to move ACMECS forward for the prosperity and well-being of our peoples”.
It stated support for investment and trade facilitation, the agricultural sector, the industrial and energy sector, transport links, tourism, human resource development, public health and the environment.
It also set out a two-year “plan of action” to implement projects related to the development of such sectors.
Agricultural development was singled out as a priority sector by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who pushed for increase cooperation on rice production and exports.
“It is important that our cooperation in rice production and exports be strengthened further. ACMECS countries can be considered a ‘rice bowl’ of the world”, Hun Sen said, in his opening speech at the summit.
Organisation members –Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - export 45 percent of rice to world markets, Hun Sen said, while Thailand and Vietnam currently lead the world in exports.
Cambodia aims to increase domestic annual rice exports to 1 million tonnes by 2015.
During talks, the five prime ministers agreed to establish a “rice cooperation mechanism” within the regional bloc to further coordinate agricultural production.
“I hope that the agricultural production sector, especially rice production, will become an important element of our cooperation in the future,” Hun Sen said.
“I believe that more efforts will be required in order to elevate cooperation to a level that we wish to be” he said.
However, financial constraints – raised by Hun Sen yesterday – have limited the number of projects on the table in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV).
The Prime Minster said financial constraints had forced the countries to reduce its planned projects – under the CLMV – grouping from 58 to 16, and urged his colleagues to engage other development partners, such as Japan, China, South Korea and India.
Members also stated support for ridding visa requirements for 30-day visits by citizens within the five countries. Cambodia and Thailand, represented by foreign ministers Hor Namhong and Kasis Piromya, also signed an agreement exempting Cambodian and Thai citizens holding ordinary passports from visa requirements to facilitate the flow of businesspeople and tourists.
Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the visa exemption would become effective in 30 days and would allow visitors to stay 14 days.
“The signing of the visa exemption is part of the effort to integrate an ASEAN community by 2015, and to boost tourists and trade”, he said.
ACMECS leaders also addressed recommendations brought by the joint business council, after several hundred business leaders from the region met in Phnom Penh yesterday.
Hun Sen said ACMECS had agreed to: expedite contract farming within ACMECS, promote the use of local currencies, review possibilities to implement the single visa scheme, strengthen the business council, and accelerate a “sister city” programme amongst border towns.
He also called upon the private sector to meet governments half-way.
“The business community also has the same mutual responsibility – reform cannot be implemented just from one side”, he said.
“So we have a two-way relationship. There must be reform from both sides.”
Newly Free Myanmar Activist Urges Talks
AP , November 14, 2010
(Comments: The dignity with which Aung San Suu Kyi had conducted herself after her recent release from House arrest, is nothing but remarkable. No wonder, that:
“President Barack Obama called Suu Kyi "a hero of mine."
I am quite certain that President Obama would never have called Sam Rainsy a hero of his. Only his supporters would continue to call their boss a hero for his act of “heroism of five seconds”, as one of his old senior party members had characterized his recent bombastic act of removing the border markers, in Svay Rieng province. (See the article on that titled “Heroism of Five Seconds,” pasted just below this article.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 15, 2010)
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YANGON, Myanmar (Nov. 14) -- Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, freed from seven years of house arrest, told thousands of wildly cheering supporters Sunday that she would continue to fight for human rights and the rule of law in the military-controlled nation. She called for face-to-face talks with the junta's leader.
She spoke to about 5,000 people who crowded around the dilapidated headquarters of her political party, the first stop for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate after leaving the lakeside residence that had been her prison.
"I believe in human rights and I believe in the rule of law. I will always fight for these things," she said. "I want to work with all democratic forces and I need the support of the people."
Aung San Suu Kyi addresses supporters Sunday in Yangon, Myanmar. She said she will "always fight" for human rights and the rule of law.
Suu Kyi, 65, told reporters her message to junta leader Gen. Than Shwe was, "Let's speak to each other directly." The two last met in secret talks in 2002 at the encouragement of the United Nations.
"I am for national reconciliation. I am for dialogue. Whatever authority I have, I will use it to that end. I hope people will support me," she said.
She entered the small compound of her National League for Democracy as people shouted "We love Suu" amid thunderous applause.
Inside, she met with Yangon-based diplomats and was later scheduled to attend the funeral of a close friend and pay a customary visit to the city's sacred Shwedagon pagoda.
"This is an unconditional release. No restrictions are placed on her," her lawyer Nyan Win said.
There was speculation whether the charismatic and relentlessly outspoken Suu Kyi would use her freedom to challenge the ruling military head-on, or be more conciliatory.
She did not sound a strident note, saying she bore no grudge against those who had held her in detention for more than 15 of the last 21 years, adding that she had been well-treated.
"I hope they (the military) won't feel threatened by me. Popularity is something that comes and goes. I don't think that anyone should feel threatened by it," she said.
Suu Kyi thanked her well-wishers and asked them to pray for those still imprisoned by the junta. Human rights groups say the government holds more than 2,200 political prisoners.
"If my people are not free, how can I say I am free? Either we are all free together or we are not free together," she said.
Speaking of her isolation while under house arrest, Suu Kyi said she "always felt free within myself. I kept myself pretty much on an even keel." But she said that for years she had only listened to the radio, adding "I'd like to listen to human voices."
In her first public appearance Saturday evening, Suu Kyi indicated she would continue with her political activity but did not specify whether she would challenge the military with mass rallies and other activities that led to her earlier detentions.
"We have a lot of things to do," said Suu Kyi, who has come to symbolize the struggle for democracy in the isolated and secretive nation once known as Burma. The country has been ruled by the military since 1962.
But while her release thrilled her supporters - and also clearly thrilled her - it came just days after an election that was swept by the ruling junta's proxy political party and decried by Western nations as a sham designed to perpetuate authoritarian control.
Many observers have questioned whether her release was timed by the junta to distract the world's attention from the Nov. 7 election.
While welcoming the release, European Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso urged that no restrictions be placed on her.
"It is now crucial that Aung San Suu Kyi has unrestricted freedom of movement and speech and can participate fully in her country's political process," he said.
President Barack Obama called Suu Kyi "a hero of mine."
"Whether Aung San Suu Kyi is living in the prison of her house, or the prison of her country, does not change the fact that she, and the political opposition she represents, has been systematically silenced, incarcerated, and deprived of any opportunity to engage in political processes," he said in a statement.
Others in Myanmar hailed Suu Kyi as the only one who might unite the impoverished country.
"She's our country's hero," said Tin Tin Yu, a 20-year-old university student, standing near Suu Kyi's house Saturday night. "Our election was a sham. Everyone knows it, but they have guns so what can we do? She's the only one who can make our country a democracy."
The new government is unlikely to win international legitimacy simply by releasing Suu Kyi because the recent election was so obviously skewed, according Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar.
What happens next will depend on what kind of restrictions the regime puts on Suu Kyi - and what she says if she is allowed to speak, Wilson said.
"We will have to wait and see. It could be a little bit of a cat-and-mouse game," Wilson said.
Suu Kyi has said she would help probe allegations of voting fraud, according to Nyan Win, who is a spokesman for her party, which was officially disbanded for refusing to register for the polls. Such actions have provoked military crackdowns in the past.
Myanmar's last elections in 1990 were won overwhelmingly by her National League for Democracy, but the military refused to hand over power and instead clamped down on opponents.
Suu Kyi was convicted last year of violating the terms of her previous detention by briefly sheltering an American man who swam uninvited to her lakeside home, extending a period of continuous detention that began in 2003 after her motorcade was ambushed in northern Myanmar by a government-backed mob.
Sponsored Links Suu Kyi took up the democracy struggle in 1988, as mass demonstrations were breaking out against 25 years of military rule. She was quickly thrust into a leadership role, mainly because she was the daughter of Aung San, who led Myanmar to independence from Britain before his assassination by political rivals.
She rode out the military's bloody suppression of street demonstrations to help found the NLD. Her defiance gained her fame and honor, most notably the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1989, she was detained on national security charges and put under house arrest.
Suu Kyi's freedom had been a key demand of Western nations and groups critical of the military regime's poor human rights record, which includes brutal military campaigns against ethnic minorities. The military government, seeking to burnish its international image, had responded previously by offering to talk with her, only to later shy away from serious negotiations.
Associated Press writers Kay Johnson and Grant Peck in Bangkok and Video journalist Jason Dorn in Washington contributed to this report.
Five Second of Heroism
Alternative Watch
By Ung Bun Ang
SRP president Sam Rainsy, who is evading an arrest warrant for inciting racial discrimination and willfully damaging state properties offers he will return from exile to face whatever the government has in store him if it releases villagers jailed in connection with the removal of six temporary border poles, and returns to them their land that they claim the poles have chipped away to neighbouring Vietnam.
The president acts heroic. He says, “I am willing to die so that the country can live, so that all Khmers have land, and decent, respectable livelihood”. He demands he be prosecuted in Hanoi so that Cambodians and the world can watch him denouncing Vietnam’s violation of Cambodia’s territory. The heroic gesture generates an emotional outburst among his supporters who are led to believe he would return to face the music; some beg him not to.
But returning to Cambodia is not really on the president’s card. After making the offer, he says he is waiting for any response before his next move, and only then, “I will consult with my colleagues in Cambodia and abroad to decide on the next step”. This means the president keeps open the Paris option even if his offer is accepted. Furthermore, to ensure that the offer is outright unacceptable, he now demands the government release “all farmers” – not just victims of the pole removal – being detained for protesting land grabbing, and gives back their property.
However, if the offer were genuine, Sam Rainsy’s commitment to die for the country might be misplaced. First, if the SRP is running some kind of a war against Vietnam and its beneficiary, it may be wise to note what US general George S Patton has to say: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” The president would need to live, and be creative to make his opponents die for their country, which he may find it too tough.
Second, the two wishes – all the farmers would be released from jail and get their land back, and Cambodians would live happily ever after (without Vietnam breathing down their neck) – might not materialise after his demise. They would be possible only if Vietnam honoured the exchange, or with a regime change in Cambodia. But retired King Sihanouk could attest Vietnam does not have a good track record of honouring its promises. Thus, the regime change may become necessary, and the task of mobilising sufficient “people power” would fall on the SRP.
It is most unlikely, however, that the SRP would be able to muster sufficient power to force the regime change, to make the president’s sacrifice worthwhile. Among the party’s claimed membership of over 750,000, only about 3,000 of them bother to sign a petition calling on the King and King Father to intervene and restore their president’s immunity.
Therefore, whether the offer is accepted or not, it sounds heroic for at least five seconds.
Quotable Quote:
“The hero appears only when the tiger is dead.” Anonymous, Burmese proverb.
Pro-Democracy Leader Suu Kyi Freed in Myanmar
http://www.aolnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-pro-democracy-leader-released-by-myanmar-junta/19715444
(Comments: this article shows how a real, unselfish, and brave leader has earned the respect of the world and has regained her freedom without compromising her moral principles. This article, more importantly, also shows how contrasting the behavior of Sam Rainsy and that of Aung San Suu Kyi. Aung San Suu Kyi is the image of courage, tenacity, honesty and up front; while that of Sam Rainsy is that of cowardice, dishonesty, and fakeness.
I know him a long time ago and had never have any respect for him. Some of his ex-senior officials of his party had also seen this side of Sam Rainsy’s character. One of them had just posted in his blog a comment on Sam Rainsy recent bombastic act in Svay Rieng province by removing the border makers, and titled “Five Seconds of Heroism.”
While Sam Rainsy continues to hide in Paris; Aung San Suu Kyi had regained her freedom without compromise, and by so doing had gained the respect of all the leaders in the world, including that of China. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 14, 2010)
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YANGON, Myanmar (Nov. 13) -- Myanmar's military government freed its archrival, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on Saturday after her latest term of detention expired. Several thousand jubilant supporters streamed to her residence.
A smiling Suu Kyi, wearing a traditional jacket and a flower in her hair, appeared at the gate of her compound as the crowd chanted, cheered and sang the national anthem.
Speaking briefly in Burmese, she thanked the well-wishers, who quickly swelled to as many as 5,000, and said they would see each other again Sunday at the headquarters of her political party.
The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whose latest period of detention spanned 7 1/2 years, has come to symbolize the struggle for democracy in the Southeast Asian nation ruled by the military since 1962.
The release from house arrest of one of the world's most prominent political prisoners came a week after an election that was swept by the military's proxy political party and decried by Western nations as a sham designed to perpetuate authoritarian control.
Supporters had been waiting most of the day near her residence and the headquarters of her political party. Suu Kyi has been jailed or under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years.
As her release was under way, riot police stationed in the area left the scene and a barbed-wire barricade near her residence was removed, allowing the waiting supporters to surge forward.
Her release was immediately welcomed by several activist groups around the world, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said it was long overdue.
"Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration for all of us who believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights," he said in a statement.
Critics allege the Nov. 7 elections were manipulated to give the pro-military party a sweeping victory. Results have been released piecemeal and already have given the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party a majority in both houses of Parliament.
The last elections in 1990 were won overwhelmingly by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, but the military refused to hand over power and instead clamped down on opponents.
Suu Kyi was convicted last year of violating the terms of her previous detention by briefly sheltering an American man who swam uninvited to her lakeside home, extending a period of continuous detention that began in 2003 after her motorcade was ambushed in northern Myanmar by a government-backed mob.
Suu Kyi has shown her mettle time and again since taking up the democracy struggle in 1988.
Having spent much of her life abroad, she returned home to take care of her ailing mother just as mass demonstrations were breaking out against 25 years of military rule. She was quickly thrust into a leadership role, mainly because she was the daughter of Aung San, who led Myanmar to independence from Britain before his assassination by political rivals.
She rode out the military's bloody suppression of street demonstrations to help found the NLD. Her defiance gained her fame and honor, most notably the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Charismatic, tireless and outspoken, her popularity threatened the country's new military rulers. In 1989, she was detained on trumped-up national security charges and put under house arrest. She was not released until 1995 and has spent various periods in detention since then.
Suu Kyi's freedom had been a key demand of Western nations and groups critical of the military regime's poor human rights record. The military government, seeking to burnish its international image, had responded previously by offering to talk with her, only to later shy away from serious negotiations.
Suu Kyi - who was barred from running in this month's elections - plans to help probe allegations of voting fraud, according to Nyan Win, who is a spokesman for her party, which was officially disbanded for refusing to reregister for this year's polls.
Such action, which could embarrass the junta, poses the sort of challenge the military has reacted to in the past by detaining Suu Kyi.
Awaiting her release in neighboring Thailand was the younger of her two sons, Kim Aris, who is seeking the chance to see his mother for the first time in 10 years. Aris lives in Britain and has been repeatedly denied visas.
Her late husband, British scholar Michael Aris, raised their sons in England. Their eldest son, Alexander Aris, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on his mother's behalf in 1991 and reportedly lives in the United States.
Michael Aris died of cancer in 1999 at age 53 after having been denied visas to see his wife for the three years before his death. Suu Kyi could have left Myanmar to see her family but decided not to, fearing the junta would not allow her back in.
China vs Vietnam
The Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 11 November 2010 21:07 David Boyle
(Comments: Hidden behind this economic war between China and Vietnam, a more dangerous problem for Cambodia, is the undeclared invasion by Vietnam through the flood of illegal immigrants. It is the more dangerous for Cambodia, but it is a taboo for any Cambodian to talk about it. For instance, in any country in the world, there are approximate statistics as to how many illegal immigrants are in the country.
In Cambodia this statistics on illegal Vietnamese illegal immigrants is state secret. Hun Sen would not allow this crucial statistics to be known. Some information, from foreign sources (See our petition on that subject sent to the UN and the US Congress based on the information by Ambassador Bindra, former ICC chairman, posted in another page of this web site), put the figure of illegal Vietnamese immigrants to be around 4 million out of 14 million total population of Cambodia. or about nearly 30 percent of the total population of Cambodia, compared to only about 5 percent before the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam in 1979.
No question in my mind, Vietnam is the most dangerous country for the survival of Cambodia, and not China. China through its tributary system, has never had any territorial ambition in Cambodia. However, I must add that without the full participation and help from Hun Sen and Sihanouk, Vietnam could not have accomplished its age-old strategy to colonizing Cambodia so easily. There is nobody to blame for in this tragedy but ourselves. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 12, 2010)
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CHINA’S commercial influence has grown in Cambodia with the signing of a refinancing deal for mobile provider Mobitel, according to international commentators, who said the People’s Republic may leverage its business interests for political advantage.
Last Thursday, Cambodian conglomerate The Royal Group signed a US$591 million deal to refinance its subsidiary Mobitel with the Bank of China. It will enable The Royal Group to pay off a $421 million debt as well as fund future capital expenditures.
One week on, political and economic commentators said there were likely political considerations with the agreement – a viewpoint government and company officials rejected yesterday.
“At the moment anything China does is viewed as having ulterior motives,” Carlyle Thayer, a politics professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy, a school managed by the University of New South Wales, told The Post.
“China has always manipulated loans to suit larger political purposes,” he said, highlighting the potential for a power play between Vietnam and China in the telecommunications sector.
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications statistics show Mobitel is the largest mobile provider by subscriber numbers, while Metfone – a subsidiary of the Vietnamese military – has grown to become the second biggest.
China and Vietnam had been engaged in “something of a tussle” over influence in Cambodia since the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, Thayer said.
“China may leverage its commercial interests to gain political influence … and also to use that influence to block [Metfone’s] drive to increase market share,” he said.
Nick Owen, Shanghai-based editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research and analysis resource, said the Mobitel deal “underscores China’s growing influence in Cambodia”.
“Long-term, low-interest loans make little sense commercially in what is still a relatively risky market,” he said.
The loan deal should not be viewed in isolation from a $500 million agreement The Royal Group signed with China’s Huawei Technologies, he said.
Yesterday, officials within Cambodia dismissed such suggestions.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said he “totally rejected” claims that there was political motivation behind the deal.
The Royal Group said it was purely a business decision to refinance with Bank of China. Chairman Kith Meng said yesterday it was “a commercial deal”.
Chief Financial Officer Mark Hanna wrote: “The deal that we have signed is a commercial transaction that has no political angle.” He said it improved the Kingdom’s image with international bankers.
“This refinancing raises the profile of Cambodia on the international debt market,” he said.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Qian Hai said the agreement was entirely business related.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SOEUN SAY
Suu Kyi demands full freedom
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 10 November 2010 20:27 Aung Hla Tun
(Comments: Unlike Sam Rainsy . who is still hiding in France, Aung San Suu Kyi is not willing to compromise on the conditions for her release by the Burmese Junta dictators. Unless she gets full freedom, she will not accept anything less. On this moral courage of Augn San Suu Kyi, her spokesperson had said that :
"The release must also be unconditional because she will not accept a limited release. As we all know, she never accepted limited freedom in the past."
Compared to the real courage for a leader of the caliber of Aung San Suu Kyi. Mr. Sam Rainsy, you have not even a minimum of fortitude and morality to be a respectable leader. You are definitely a fake and a coward.
The saddest part of the whole Sam Rainsy ’s saga is the fact that he is a coward. Following the old Cambodian habit of compromising, his followers are lowering their standard of their already low or non existant morality to accept him as leader. And I know a few of them, who told me that they did not have any choice, because, they have no other people. Did these people ever have the courage to challenge Sam Rainsy to go back to Cambodia and face Hun Sen head-on? Apparently, they did not.
Sam Rainsy always aksed for help from foreigner natins and international organizations sauch the European parliament for help; While Aung San Suu Kyi never asked for such help from the United States nor the United Nations, but she still got their support, as President Obama has recently observed on the recent election in Burma:
"United States President Barack Obama dismissed the election as “stolen”, while China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded it as "peaceful and successful", illustrating strengthening ties between energy-hungry Beijing and its resource-rich neighbour."
Did they ever ask the question whether this kind so-called leader without any courage and a big ego as Sam Rainsy is; can he really save Cambodia? Apparently, they did not. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 10, 2010)
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Aung San Suu Kyi will not accept conditions on her freedom if the military government releases her this week, according to her lawyer.
The charismatic and influential figurehead of Myanmar's fight for democracy could still be a potent threat to the ruling military but it stands to gain diplomatically by freeing her.
Suu Kyi voiced opposition to Myanmar's first election in 20 years, held last Sunday and easily won, as expected, by a party set up by the military.
She has called on her loyalists to expose electoral fraud, her lawyer, Nyan Win, said.
United States President Barack Obama dismissed the election as “stolen”, while China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded it as "peaceful and successful", illustrating strengthening ties between energy-hungry Beijing and its resource-rich neighbour.
Myanmar's other neighbours and partners in the Association of South East Asian Nations had urged it to make the election "fair and inclusive" and to release Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners before the vote.
While that did not happen, there is speculation she might be freed from house arrest on Saturday, when a sentence imposed last year for the violation of a security law is due to end.
"Aung San Suu Kyi must be released on or before November 13 because it is the day when the house arrest on her expires," said Nyan Win, who is also a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"The release must also be unconditional because she will not accept a limited release. As we all know, she never accepted limited freedom in the past."
When released from a six-year stint of house arrest in 1995, Suu Kyi was not allowed to leave the city of Yangon. She has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years. - Reuters
Chinese pledges $1.6bn
The Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 04 November 2010 21:12 Cheang Sokha
(Comments: as usual, the Chinese are applying the code of conduct as contained in their centuries-old tributary system, which is the norms for practicing diplomatic and economic relations between China and foreign countries, in this case Cambodia.
In order not to waste their money given to Cambodia, and knowing that the Hun Sen’s regime is very corrupt, the Chinese make sure that their money will go to the people and not in the pockets of Hun Sen and his extended family members, by concentrating their investment in infrastructure (road, railroads, bridges, seaports, airports), and to give most of the construction jobs on these projects to Chinese-owned companies.
They have also invested in real resources, especially in raw material and agriculture. Unlike the Vietnamese, they did not send into Cambodia illegal immigrants.
So, for Hillary Clinton to advise Cambodia not to be too close to either china or Vietnam, either she is ignorant of Vietnam’s centuries-old process of colonization of Cambodia, or she simply chooses to favour Vietnam over China, as the USA has already chosen Vietnam as a new ally to fight against China’s rising power in the region and in the world (Please, see many articles on this important issue posted in this page). Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 5, 2010).
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China has pledged to invest US$1.6 billion in infrastructure projects in the Kingdom over the next five years, as Wu Bangguo, China’s top legislator, continued his four-day visit to Cambodia.
The sum will be spread over 23 projects to be implemented by 2015, information minister Khieu Kanharith said following a meeting between Wu, the chairman of the standing committee of China’s national people’s congress, and Prime Minister Hun Sen.
“China has lots of experience in infrastructure projects, so they will help Cambodia to develop roads, bridges, ports, railways and information technology,” Khieu Kanharith said.
China has also announced an additional $15 million in aid and has pledged to cancel $4.2 million in debt that Cambodia was due to repay this year, Khieu Kanharith said, in addition to signing 16 agreements related to hydropower and water resources. The Financial Times reported that the agreements included electricity deals involving Chinese state power producer Huadian.
Specific details of the projects were unavailable; Chinese embassy spokesman Qian Hai said he had no information on the issue.
The announcements came only days after United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concluded a two-day visit to the Kingdom in which she announced plans to dispatch a “team of experts” to resolve the long-standing issue of Cambodia’s Lon Nol-era debt to the US, which stands at roughly $445 million with interest. Clinton warned Cambodia during her visit against becoming too dependent on Beijing, saying it was “smart for Cambodia to be friends with many countries”.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SAM RITH AND JAMES O’TOOLE.
Cambodia maintains distance on Myanmar poll
the Phnom Penh Post; Thursday, 04 November 2010 18:46 Sebastian Strangio
(Comments: it is expected that the Hun Sen’s regime would characterize the current Burmese elections as democratic, as in Cambodia under his own rule, when Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the government hoped the elections, scheduled for Sunday, would be carried out in a “democratic and transparent” manner. Whereas other neutral observers had said the opposite, such a Amnesty International, when it said that the credibility of ASEAN as a whole would be at stake during the Myanmar elections. And it went on to state that: “Failure to address both past and present [rights] violations may prove critical for the future realisation of peoples’ rights in Myanmar and the international credibility of its neighbours,” Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 6, 2010) The Cambodian government has adopted a wait-and-see approach to the upcoming elections in Myanmar, amid mounting criticism of a process many observers see as a charade to legitimise military rule.
Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the government hoped the elections, scheduled for Sunday, would be carried out in a “democratic and transparent” manner.
“We don’t know about the other reactions, the comments from other countries, but the Cambodian government hopes that the elections will be democratic,” he said.
Critics have dismissed the vote as a sham process designed to entrench military rule, and say it cannot be credible while it excludes opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.
According to electoral rules passed in March, a quarter of the seats in the country’s proposed parliament will be reserved for hand-picked military candidates, while opposition parties toil under a wide range of restrictions, including bans on ex-political prisoners running as candidates.
Koy Kuong said he could not comment on the plight of Suu Kyi, adding that the issue was Myanmar’s “internal affair”.
Cambodia’s hands-off attitude reflects that of ASEAN’s member states, most of whom have been reluctant to criticise the junta over its preparations for the poll.
Only the Philippines has come out in open opposition to the process, describing it at the 17th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi last month as a “farce to democratic values of transparency”.
Opposition Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Mu Sochua said despite ASEAN’s much-mooted policy of mutual non-interference, ASEAN nations should take a firm stance against polls she said had been gutted by the “elimination” of the political opposition in Myanmar.
“If Cambodia wants to be recognised as a democratic country, we must ask the government of Cambodia to point out the shortfalls of the preparations for the elections in Myanmar,” she said.
Sean Turnell, a Myanmar expert based at Macquarie University in Sydney, said the election was engineered to create “a fig leaf of international legitimacy” for a regime that has been a perennial irritation for ASEAN.
“For many years now ASEAN has become impatient with Burma,” he said, referring to the country by its former name. “A mask of democracy could allow them some wriggle room to at least get Burma off the table.”
While the electoral process was likely to be a “farce”, Turnell said, it might also be an opportunity that some Asian countries may use to expand business and trade with the pariah regime.
In a statement last month, Amnesty International said the credibility of ASEAN as a whole would be at stake during the Myanmar elections.
“Failure to address both past and present [rights] violations may prove critical for the future realisation of peoples’ rights in Myanmar and the international credibility of its neighbours,” the letter stated.
Clinton urges Cambodia to strike balance with China
The Washington Post; By John Pomfret
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
(Comments: First Hillary Clinton recent statement in Phnom Penh, and off hand, sounds really good as an advice for Cambodian leaders to remain neutral, and not to be too closed to either China or vietnam.
However, knowing the political orientation shift of the Obama administration as recently proclaimed by Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, which is to use Vietnam a new ally of the USA to confront China rising power in Asia. Especially when we now know that Mrs. Clinton is well-aware of Vietnam total control of Hun Sen and his CPP and therefore of Cambodia, what she is really saying is for Cambodia not to be too close to China. In fact Cambodia is having a more normal relation with China than with Vietnam. Vietnam is controlling Cambodia by putting their man (Hun Sen, Pol Pot, Pen Sovann) at the head of Cambodia, Whereas China has not done such political interference in Cambodia.
What will Hun Sen do? Hun Sen cannot change his allegiance to vietnam, as the recent incident in Svay Rieng province has taught a good lesson to Hun Sen that vietnam will not tolerate any change in their dominance of Cambodia by anybody, other wise they will be remove militarily or politically as they did with Pen Sovann, a few decades ago.
Sihanouk’s recent visit to Hanoi is the case in point. Sihanouk went to Hanoi not to privately pay courtesy to the president of Vietnam, but to plead for pardon on behalf of Hun Sen, because of the Sam Rainsy Svay Rieng border incident mentioned earlier. So, the real message of Hillary Clinton amounts to saying that Cambodia is better off to keep the situation as is, and not to move any closer to China, nor away from Vietnam.
I am speaking here as an American citizen and not as Cambodian. As an American citizen, I don’t think it is not in America’s interests to use Vietnam as a countervailing force against china. For Cambodia, unless and Sihanouk are no longer in collusion with vietnam, the dominance of Vietnam will remain there for a very long time, at Cambodia‘s expense.
Those overseas Cambodians who have recently written to Sihanouk asking him to use his perceived close friendship with China to ask their leaders to help the Cambodian leader (Sihanouk) get Vietnam out of Cambodia. That request shows how naïve and unaware these overseas Cambodians are regarding the interplay of powers between Vietnam and China, on the one hand, and between China and the USA on the other. The Vietnamese are adept in getting the best out of these complex and complicate situations. The Cambodians always wait for other to help or use them.
At the same time, they should know that Sihanouk is already caught in Vietnam and Hun Sen’s trap. Sihanouk cannot get closer to China, and away from Vietnam and Hun Sen, only at the high cost of being brought to be tried in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal for his deep past involvement with the Khmer Rouge regime in the earlier years during the resistance movement against the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, that he headed in the 1980s. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 3, 2010)
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PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday called on Cambodia to maintain an independent foreign policy and avoid relying too much on China.
Clinton is on the second leg of a seven-country swing through Asia. The trip is designed to reinforce a central plank of foreign policy in the Obama administration: that the United States views Asia as key to the future and that the United States must act in this region to balance China's influence. President Obama also heads to Asia this week for meetings in India, Indonesia and South Korea.
"You don't want to get too dependent on any one country," Clinton said Monday in response to a question about China's influence during a meeting with Cambodian students.
"There are important issues that Cambodia must raise with China," she continued, pointing to a string of Chinese dams on the upper Mekong River that risk lowering the flow of the river as it courses through Cambodia.
Clinton came to Cambodia from talks in Vietnam and China. Her trip to Vietnam marked the U.S. accession to the East Asian Summit - a group of 18 Asian nations that the United States joined as a way to balance China's heft.
Clinton has been to Vietnam twice in the past four months, and this is her sixth trip to Asia as secretary of state. Her visit to Cambodia marked the first time since Colin L. Powell came here in 2003 that a U.S. secretary of state has held meetings in this country.
U.S. officials acknowledge that countering China's growing influence here will not be easy. China is the top provider of aid to Cambodia, giving more than $200 million a year. It has built bridges, roads and power plants all over the country, and China also trains and supplies Cambodia's military.
One issue that divides the United States and Cambodia is the more than $400 million that Cambodia owes to Washington. The debt was incurred during the Lon Nol regime in the 1970s.
Clinton announced that Washington would send a team to resume talks with the Cambodian government over the issue.
Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters that his country wanted the debt to be diverted into development assistance and education.
Another issue involves the international effort to bring to justice members of the Khmer Rouge regime, thought to be responsible for killing up to 2 million people from 1976 to 1979. Cambodia has indicated that it wants the prosecutions to stop after four senior regime officials go to trial, perhaps next year.
Hor Namhong said Monday that if the prosecutions were expanded to include lower-ranking Khmer Rouge officials, "it could jeopardize peace and stability." Clinton responded that her first priority was raising the $50 million needed to prosecute the existing cases against Nuon Chea, Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan.
The United States isn't the only country seeking to balance China's rise. Vietnam, which is worried about China's influence in Southeast Asia, announced Saturday that it is reopening its naval facilities at Cam Ranh Bay to foreign navies. The United States used the bay as a naval base during the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union took over use of the facilities after Vietnam was united under a communist government in 1975.
Japan also moved this weekend to diversify its sources of rare earth minerals following China's decision to cut exports of the minerals, which are critical in high-tech manufacturing. Over the weekend, Japan and Vietnam agreed to jointly mine and process the minerals in Vietnam. China began blocking the export of rare earths to Japan last month after a Chinese fishing vessel collided with two Japanese coast guard ships near the Senkaku Islands. China claims the islands as its own territory.
Chinese officials said recently that China, which accounts for 97 percent of the world's production of rare earths, was committed to responsibly exporting the minerals.
China’s Growing Independence and the New World Order
By Noam Chomsky
In These Times; October 5, 2010
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6499/chinas_growing_independence_and_the_new_world_order
(Comments: I am not at all a fan of Norm Chomsky, but, his article shows how illusory the US is a far as the perception of the importance of its own power, militarily and politically. The US power has been eroding, mostly by internal problems than from abroad. The US society has become an unjust one, as shown by its increasingly unequal income and wealth distribution, and accentuated from the consequences of the recent deadly and devastating financial crisis, not to mention the extremely high national debt to GDP ratio, similar to Greece, and Spain, as mentioned by Professor Nouriel Roubini in a recent TV interview titled “Post-Elections, Nouriel Roubini Sees a U.S. 'Fiscal Train Wreck'”. This does not mean that the US is about to die anytime soon.
No doubt, the US still has that power of inventiveness, entrepreneurial skill, and creativity, as exemplified by Google, Apples, IBM, to name just a few. But, this positive feature of the US inventiveness and creativeness has been lost resulting from the false pretense and belief that the market can do anything and the government is no good at doing anything, as argued by Ronald Reagan and his followers. Unless this fact is recognize, however creative and inventive ability the US may have, unless some sanity and balance view is restored soon, the US has nowhere to go but down.
Then, the US should not blame others for this mess and seemingly bottomless free fall. For a complete view on this subject, please, also read the article posted just below titled “In historic turn, China casts China as opponent.” Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 1, 2010)
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Chinese leaders are unlikely to be impressed by such [U.S. warnings], the language of an imperial power desperately trying to cling to authority it no longer has.
Of all the “threats” to world order, the most consistent is democracy, unless it is under imperial control, and more generally, the assertion of independence. These fears have guided imperial power throughout history.
In South America, Washington’s traditional backyard, the subjects are increasingly disobedient. Their steps toward independence advanced further in February with the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which includes all states in the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada.
For the first time since the Spanish and Portuguese conquests 500 years ago, South America is moving toward integration, a prerequisite to independence. It is also beginning to address the internal scandal of a continent that is endowed with rich resources but dominated by tiny islands of wealthy elites in a sea of misery.
Furthermore, South-South relations are developing, with China playing a leading role, both as a consumer of raw materials and as an investor. Its influence is growing rapidly and has surpassed the United States’ in some resource-rich countries.
More significant still are changes in Middle Eastern arena. Sixty years ago, the influential planner A. A. Berle advised that controlling the region’s incomparable energy resources would yield “substantial control of the world.”
Correspondingly, loss of control would threaten the project of global dominance. By the 1970s, the major producers nationalized their hydrocarbon reserves, but the West retained substantial influence. In 1979, Iran was “lost” with the overthrow of the shah’s dictatorship, which had been imposed by a U.S.-U.K. military coup in 1953 to ensure that this prize would remain in the proper hands.
By now, however, control is slipping away even among the traditional U.S. clients.
The largest hydrocarbon reserves are in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. dependency ever since the U.S. displaced Britain there in a mini-war conducted during World War II. The U.S. remains by far the largest investor in Saudi Arabia and its major trading partner, and Saudi Arabia helps support the U.S. economy via investments.
However, more than half of Saudi oil exports now go to Asia, and its plans for growth face east. The same may be turn out to be true of Iraq, the country with the second-largest reserves, if it can rebuild from the massive destruction of the murderous U.S.-U.K. sanctions and the invasion. And U.S. policies are driving Iran, the third major producer, in the same direction.
China is now the largest importer of Middle Eastern oil and the largest exporter to the region, replacing the United States. Trade relations are growing fast, doubling in the past five years.
The implications for world order are significant, as is the quiet rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes much of Asia but has banned the U.S.—potentially “a new energy cartel involving both producers and consumers,” observes economist Stephen King, author of Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity.
In Western policy-making circles and among political commentators, 2010 is called “the year of Iran.” The Iranian threat is considered to pose the greatest danger to world order and to be the primary focus of U.S. foreign policy, with Europe trailing along politely as usual. It is officially recognized that the threat is not military: Rather, it is the threat of independence.
To maintain “stability” the U.S. has imposed harsh sanctions on Iran, but outside of Europe, few are paying attention. The nonaligned countries—most of the world—have strongly opposed U.S. policy toward Iran for years.
Nearby Turkey and Pakistan are constructing new pipelines to Iran, and trade is increasing. Arab public opinion is so enraged by Western policies that a majority even favor Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
The conflict benefits China. “China’s investors and traders are now filling a vacuum in Iran as businesses from many other nations, especially in Europe, pull out,” Clayton Jones reports in The Christian Science Monitor. In particular, China is expanding its dominant role in Iran’s energy industries.
Washington is reacting with a touch of desperation. In August, the State Department warned that “If China wants to do business around the world it will also have to protect its own reputation, and if you acquire a reputation as a country that is willing to skirt and evade international responsibilities that will have a long-term impact … their international responsibilities are clear”—namely, to follow U.S. orders.
Chinese leaders are unlikely to be impressed by such talk, the language of an imperial power desperately trying to cling to authority it no longer has. A far greater threat to imperial dominance than Iran is China’s refusing to obey orders—and indeed, as a major and growing power, dismissing them with contempt.
This is the second of two columns by Noam Chomsky about China. In These Times published the first, “China and the New World Order,” in September.
In historic turn, Vietnam casts China as opponent
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 30, 2010
(Comments: this important article has given the irrefutable proof that the USA is now working closely with Vietnam to counter the rising of China in Asia. Vietnam has decided to go along with that new offensive and initiated by the United States started by the Bush’s Administration, now is an integral part of Obama’s strategy in Asia marking the official return of the USA in Asia after the fiasco in the last Vietnam War. This strategy consists of “divide and rule.” On the US side are; Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, and may be the Philippines. But, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Myanmar are on china side.
I would not comment on whether this reentry of the US in Asia, is wise or not. I want simply to say that, with all the problems the US is now facing domestically and in the world, especially in the Middle East, and the huge economic and financial crisis which is still not resolved, how could the US afford now to be involved in the dispute with China
It is difficult to understand Obama’s accepting this legacy from Bush era. But, that is the way the US policy in Asia is now under the guidance of secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense secretary Robert Gates.
This switch in US foreign policy in Asia presents some interesting options for Hun Sen and Sihanouk. Hun Sen, no doubt, will have no option but to go along with Vietnam, and therefore, with the US. More importantly, this switch in US foreign policy toward Vietnam, shows that Vietnam is, once again, able to use other powers, namely, the US, and not allow itself to be used by others; which is completely the opposite of Cambodia, which had always allowed other powers to use it. The quote from this article pasted below amply proves my point on this issue.
" Vietnam's charm offensive is not limited to the United States. Hanoi has strengthened its ties to its old patron, Moscow, and last year contracted to buy six Kilo-class submarines. Another Chinese rival, India, is in talks to help Vietnam upgrade its fleet of MiG-21 fighters. France, Vietnam's former colonial master, is considering selling warships to Hanoi. Vietnam has also reached out to Asian powers, such as South Korea and Japan, dropping visa requirements for their citizens five years ago. "
This situation should, however, present a real dilemma for Sihanouk; it is well known that he is very loyal to the Chinese. If Sihanouk chooses not to ally himself with the Vietnamese and Hun Sen, he could be brought to be tried at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, at the Vietnamese and Hun Sen’s request, because of his past heavy involvement with the Khmer Rouge.
I am very curious to see what Sihanouk will do, from now on, to save his skin once more. Stay tuned, more to come. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 31, 2010)
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HANOI - Three weeks ago, an exhibition opened at the Vietnam Military History Museum. On one side of a long hall, the mementos of Vietnam's 25 years of war against the United States and France - letters of surrender, quotations from Ho Chi Minh, hand grenades and AK-47 rifles - lined the walls. Nothing new there.
But on the other side, the History Museum was actually making history. Along those walls hung daggers, paintings and quotations from Vietnam's struggle with another rival: imperial China. Battles dating from 1077, 1258 and the 14th and 18th centuries were featured in intricate detail.
Putting China on a par with "Western aggressors" marks a psychological breakthrough for Vietnam's military and is troubling news for Beijing. For years, China has tried to forge a special relationship with Vietnam's Communist government. But China's rise - and its increasingly aggressive posture toward Vietnam - has alarmed the leadership of this country of 90 million, prompting it to look differently at its neighbor. Beijing risks losing its status here as a fraternal Communist partner and instead being relegated to its longtime place as the empire on Vietnam's northern border that has shaped and bedeviled this country for centuries.
That change of perception has led Vietnam to embark on an extraordinary undertaking to befriend the world as a hedge against China. And prominent among its new intimates is the United States, which is equally eager for partners to help it cope with Beijing.
"It is always good to have a new friend," mused Vice Minister of Defense Nguyen Chi Vinh in an interview. "It is even better when that friend used to be our foe."
The budding U.S.-Vietnamese friendship was on display Friday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here for her second visit in four months. Less than three weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates was here. In August, the Defense Department held its first security dialogue with its counterpart in Hanoi. Three U.S. naval vessels have visited Vietnam in the past year. More than 30 Vietnamese officers are studying at U.S. military academies.
"The U.S. fought a war in Vietnam to check China's rise," said one former senior Vietnamese official who was not authorized by the government to speak to a reporter. "Now it's pursuing friendly relations with Vietnam . . . to check China's rise."
Vietnam and the United States are hammering out an agreement that would give Vietnam access to American nuclear energy technology. That, Vietnamese officials say, could help Hanoi end its dependence on China for electricity. Meanwhile, Vietnamese defense officials say they are eager to buy U.S. military technology, including sonar equipment to track Chinese submarines. Hanoi is also involved in talks to obtain spare parts for its arsenal of U.S.-made UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, an icon of the Vietnam War. And defying Chinese pressure, three American oil companies are carrying out offshore exploration in Vietnam's waters.
Common causes
Clinton's two-day visit marks the first time the United States will have participated in the East Asia Summit - an annual forum of the region's major countries. In fact, Vietnam ushered the United States into the group.
"The Vietnamese are very enthusiastic about deepening their partnership with us," Clinton said last week during a conversation with historian Michael Beschloss. "Here's a war where tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese were killed and maimed and injured and whose impact was felt so profoundly in our country and in Vietnam. And yet the Vietnamese and the Americans now are doing business together, are doing diplomacy together, are making common cause in some of the regional-global issues that we are both concerned with."
"We should leave the war to the writers," said Bao Ninh, the author of a haunting novel about the conflict titled "The Sorrow of War." Besides, added Ninh, who served as a private during the war, the United States is wildly popular here. "Even my generation likes the Americans more. If you polled the army, they'd still vote for the U.S."
One common cause the two countries have found is ensuring that China does not dominate the South China Sea. Beijing claims the whole 1 million-square-mile waterway including vast swaths of empty ocean 1,000 miles from China's southernmost tip, and has dispatched the world's largest maritime security vessel to the region to harass Vietnamese fishermen and oil exploration teams. In July, after consultation with Vietnam, Clinton broached the issue at a meeting of Southeast Asian nations in Hanoi, rejecting China's claims to the ownership of open ocean and calling for multilateral talks. Eleven other countries followed the United States' lead. China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, left the meeting in apparent shock, returning only to remind the other countries there that they are small and China is big.
Another common cause will be highlighted Saturday when Clinton leads a meeting of the U.S.-inspired Lower Mekong Initiative, which seeks, in part, to push Beijing to limit the number of dams it builds on the Mekong River as it flows south through China. Last week, the Mekong was at its lowest level in recorded history, and analysts in Vietnam blamed China's dams, irrigation and hydroelectric projects for the drop.
Branching out
Vietnam's charm offensive is not limited to the United States. Hanoi has strengthened its ties to its old patron, Moscow, and last year contracted to buy six Kilo-class submarines. Another Chinese rival, India, is in talks to help Vietnam upgrade its fleet of MiG-21 fighters. France, Vietnam's former colonial master, is considering selling warships to Hanoi. Vietnam has also reached out to Asian powers, such as South Korea and Japan, dropping visa requirements for their citizens five years ago.
"The Vietnamese are trying to find a way of telling the Chinese, 'We've got powerful friends,' " said Nayan Chanda, the author of "Brother Enemy," the classic study of Vietnam's relations with China. "But it's a very delicate game."
Indeed, China's influence in Vietnam remains powerful. Vietnam's economic reforms - known as doi moi - were inspired by China, and its security services have learned a lot from their Chinese counterparts about how to maintain one-party rule. As such, Hanoi is careful not to disturb Beijing, or not too much. At the Military Museum, for example, one war gets no treatment at all - the bloody border conflict Vietnam fought with China in 1979.
Vietnam's censors also routinely ban anti-Chinese news reports. On Thursday, the Foreign Affairs Ministry ordered a leading online newspaper, Vietnamnet, to pull an article predicting that Southeast Asian nations would take a tough stance against China over maritime disputes and other issues. Other stories, however, do get through, such as reports this week of a petition campaign led by Nguyen Thi Binh, Vietnam's former vice president and the Viet Cong's representative at the Paris peace talks, against a massive Chinese-invested bauxite mine in Vietnam's central highlands.
"We have been next to China for 4,000 years. We cannot just up and move," said Pham Chi Lan, a senior economist involved in the petition, which has drawn 3,000 signatures. "In order to survive, however, we need friends."
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
UN chief tours Khmer Rouge prison, appeals for more justice during visit to Cambodia
By: SOPHENG CHEANG
Associated Press
Thursday, October 28, 2010 | Last Update 6:23 EDT
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/breaking/un-chief-tours-khmer-rouge-prison-appeals-for-more-justice-during-visit-to-cambodia-105970313.html
(Comments: Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General is a very brave and dignified person by daring to challenge Hun Sen and his CPP’s regime to bring more of those former Khmer Rouge leaders who are now members of his government to justice. We shall see who is going to have the last word on that important subject.
I hope that UN S.G. Ban Ki Moon, will pursue to the end the content of his remark on the Khmer Rouge trial, as follows:
"We know it is difficult to relive this terrible chapter in your history," Ban said. "But I want you to know, your courage sends a powerful message to the world — that there can be no impunity. That crimes of humanity shall not go unpunished."
Should UN SG Ban Ki Moon’s remark become a reality sooner or later, real justice, and not “practical justice,” as suggested by Craig Etcheson, will be rendered to those Cambodians and non-Cambodians who were cowardly murdered by Pol Pot and his gang of savages. As important, is the efforts by Hun Sen and the Vietnamese to serve their common objective, which is to demonize the demon, will not be fulfilled. N. Washington DC. October 29, 2010)
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PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made an emotional appeal Thursday for Cambodia to send a message to the world that the Khmer Rouge's crimes against humanity will not go unpunished.
Ban's comments came after a tour of the Khmer Rouge's main prison and torture center during a visit to Cambodia that has been marked by heated words from the country's leader.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday ordered Ban to shut down the U.N. human rights office in Cambodia and to remove the current envoy.
Hun Sen also told Ban that Cambodia will not allow the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal to expand the scope of its trials to include former low-ranking officers of the regime.
The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime was blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
"Thirty years have passed. Yet here, in this tragic place, we still hear the echoes. The cries of human misery. The agony," Ban said at the infamous S-21 prison where as many as 16,000 people were tortured before being executed. "I will never forget my visit here today. In this place of horror, ladies and gentlemen, let the human spirit triumph. Words cannot do justice. But we can."
Ban later told The Associated Press in an interview that he had emphasized to Hun Sen the need for the government to "provide full cooperation and fully respect the independence of the court." He said the leader gave assurances for both.
The tribunal closed its first case in July when it convicted the regime's chief jailer and head of S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A second trial is expected to start next year against the four top surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
Hun Sen has said the trials will stop there, despite U.N. wishes to bring lower-ranking officers to justice for murder, torture and other crimes. The U.N. says progress has been blocked by political interference from Cambodian officials who oppose more prosecutions.
"We know it is difficult to relive this terrible chapter in your history," Ban said. "But I want you to know, your courage sends a powerful message to the world — that there can be no impunity. That crimes of humanity shall not go unpunished."
Critics accuse the Cambodian leader of trying to limit the tribunal's scope to prevent his political allies from being indicted. Hun Sen once served as a Khmer Rouge officer and many of his main allies are also former members of the group.
He also objects to the presence of U.N. human rights envoys, who tend to criticize the government's human rights abuses.
"The office for U.N. human rights in Cambodia has to be shut down," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith quoted Hun Sen as telling Ban during a two-hour meeting Wednesday.
Hun Sen accused the U.N. rights envoy, Christophe Peschoux, of "not working on human rights issues with the government but working as a spokesman for the opposition," Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters.
Ban has not commented publicly on Hun Sen's demands, but told the AP Thursday: "I am convinced that we will continue to work here in Cambodia. That's my understanding after further meetings with the prime minister and the foreign minister."
Human Rights Watch's Asia deputy director Phil Robertson said the warning "appears to be part of Hun Sen's master plan to ensure total impunity for himself and consolidate authoritarian power."
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Associated Press writer Vijay Joshi contributed to this report.
PM rebuffs queries on 1991 peace treaty
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 25 October 2010 15:03 Sebastian Strangio and Vong Sokheng
(Comments: as expected, Hun Sen had challenged Sam Rainsy to go to his politically controlled-court of justice to resolve the dispute between him and Sam Rainsy regarding the implementation of the Paris Agreements, when he uttered ;
““If those posing the questions are already alleging the Royal Government of ‘violating the Paris Agreement’, it would be constitutionally sound for them to use their legal rights to bring the case to the courts to decide,” he said.
It is sad to hear that to the other opposition party members still hoping that those who were the sponsors of the Paris agreements, namely France, and the United States would intervene in their favour. The recent motion passed by the European Parliament calling Hun Sen to allow Sam Rainsy to go back without being going to jail, is again a sad repetition one of the main morally-flawed national characters, which is what Historian David Chandler had appropriately called “dependence mentality.’
These opposition leaders should know by now that, France has always been a true and lasting admirer and friend of vietnam, whereas the USA has shifted to now from an enemy to being an ally of Vietnam to fight against the rising power of China in Asia (see two companion articles posted just below this one, titled “RCAF starts exercise with US,” and “While worried about China, ASEAN remains wary of a US role.”
Unlike the Vietnamese, who used foreign powers to serve their national interests, the Cambodians always expect the major powers to come and save them from foreign aggression.
Unless, Cambodians abandon this “dependence mentality” sooner rather later, Cambodia cannot go anywhere but down. But, to abandon this negative national ,moral character, Cambodians need a really smart, courageous, and intelligent leader, which is not certainly represented by Sam Rainsy.
Time is not on the Cambodian side to get out of this deadly Vietnamese trap. Nobody can save Cambodia, but the Cambodians themselves. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 27, 2010)
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PRIME Minister Hun Sen has declined to answer parliamentary queries relating to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, accusing the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, which filed the request for information, of “serving the interests” of foreign powers.
In a letter to National Assembly President Heng Samrin dated Saturday, Hun Sen said the SRP’s questions, sent to Heng Samrin earlier in the month, were simply veiled accusations that the government had violated the landmark treaty.
As a result, Hun Sen declined to address the issue in the National Assembly, saying it was “not a forum to judge an allegation made by a Member of the National Assembly”.
“If those posing the questions are already alleging the Royal Government of ‘violating the Paris Agreement’, it would be constitutionally sound for them to use their legal rights to bring the case to the courts to decide,” he said.
The Paris Peace Agreements, signed 19 years ago Saturday, brought to an end the country’s decade-long civil war, smoothed the way for the return of thousands of refugees and ushered in democratic elections under United Nations auspices.
Hun Sen said the SRP’s criticisms, contained in a letter signed by four SRP lawmakers on October 15, mirrored those of nationalist elements in Thailand.
“Such allegations clearly show that the members of the National Assembly from the SRP have been serving the interests of another country rather than their own nation’s,” Hun Sen added.
SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said yesterday that territorial incursions by Thailand and Vietnam both represented violations of the agreement, and accused the government of failing to protect Cambodia’s sovereignty. He rejected Hun Sen’s claim that the party was influenced by foreign interests.
The SRP has recently paid particular attention to alleged Vietnamese encroachments.
The party’s president, Sam Rainsy, is living in self-imposed exile abroad after being sentenced to a total of 12 years in jail over his campaign to expose incursions.
In a statement Friday, the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights said the Paris Agreements offered a solid framework for a democratic Cambodia, and acknowledged that the government had done much to improve the situation. It added, however, that Cambodia “remains far” from realising its objectives.
“The rights and freedoms which the agreements so specifically required are now routinely breached with few, if any, consequences,” CCHR said, listing evictions, indigenous rights and political interference in the courts as main areas of concern.
Son Soubert, who helped negotiate the agreement in Paris as a member of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, said the close relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam, including the influx of thousands of illegal Vietnamese immigrants, was a longstanding violation of the agreement.
He added that the government had also failed to demobilise its armed forces by “at least 70 percent”, as stipulated in the agreement’s second annex.
Ultimately, Son Soubert said, the onus for enforcing the agreement lies with foreign donor nations, which have been selective in their support of it.
“The international community is giving assistance to the government within the framework of the agreement,” he said, “but not on the other stipulations ... such as human rights [and] democracy.”
RCAF starts exercise with US
The Phnom Penh Post; Tuesday, 26 October 2010 15:01 Vong Sokheng
About 600 sailors from the United States navy have joined hundreds of their counterparts from the Royal Cambodian Navy in a maritime safety and security training exercise in Preah Sihanouk province.
Chrea Vanrith, a spokesman for the US embassy in Phnom Penh, said the maritime exercise, known as Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training Cambodia 2010, started yesterday and would run until Saturday.
In a statement issued yesterday, Captain David Welch, deputy commodore of CARAT’s Combined Task Group 73.1, said the exercise would help “build relationships and trust” between the US and Cambodian naval forces.
“Training side by side builds on the already good interoperability between Cambodian Navy forces and the US navy,” he was quoted as saying.
“Though this marks the first year of CARAT with the Cambodian Navy, we’re already seeing results in the way we can better communicate and work together.” According to the statement, the highlight of the exercise will be an “under way” operation, during which US and Royal Cambodian Navy ships will spend a day conducting joint operations at sea – the first time the two countries’ navies have operated at sea as part of a dedicated exercise in more than 40 years.
The CARAT operations will also focus on training for diving and salvage operations, port security, small-boat handling and maintenance, maritime interdiction, seizure boarding operations, maritime aircraft operations and engineering and medical civic action programmes.
CARAT Cambodia 2010 has proceeded in two phases, according to the statement.
The first finished in June 2010, and saw US and Cambodian marines conduct training in the jungle near Sihanoukville at the same time that an explosive ordnance disposal team underwent training near Phnom Penh.
Cambodia is the seventh Southeast Asian nation to have joined CARAT, alongside Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, it said. Bangladesh also recently joined the series.
In July, Cambodia also hosted the US-sponsored Angkor Sentinel 2010, a large-scale military exercise involving more than 1,000 military personnel from 26 countries.
Chhum Socheat, spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, said yesterday that he had not been informed about the exercise. Minister of Defence Tea Banh could not reached for comment.
While worried about China, ASEAN remains wary of a US role
Marvin Ott
YaleGlobal , 27 September 2010
WASHINGTON: The second ASEAN-US leaders’ summit in New York may have conveyed the impression of an emerging alliance. Sure, after years of keeping a low profile on Southeast Asian problems, the United States is more engaged than ever. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Beijing by taking a public position supporting Association of Southeast Asian Nations efforts to seek peaceful resolution of territorial disputes with China through multilateral diplomacy and for status of the South China Sea as a “maritime commons” rather than a territorial sea.
The image of Chinese expansion and US resistance has been reinforced by events to the immediate north in the East China Sea, after a Chinese fishing boat rammed a Japanese Coast Guard vessel off the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands. China demanded release of the arrested captain, reparations and an apology from Tokyo. Japan agreed to the release, but declared acquiescence to the latter two demands “unthinkable.” Japan has been bolstered by Clinton’s assertion that Japanese “administration” of the islands falls under the purview of the US-Japan Security Treaty and Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ terse observation that the US “would fulfill our alliance obligations.”
Beijing’s strategic ambitions in Southeast Asia are real. From China’s perspective, Southeast Asia is its southern doorstep. |
However, it would be a mistake to construe the New York summit as the beginning of a new Asian-American alliance against China. Despite anxieties about China’s growing power, no ASEAN countries would be willing to put their money where their mouths are. Suddenly the US is seen as standing athwart Chinese strategic ambitions in Southeast Asia – with ASEAN governments apparently lining up in support of Washington against Beijing. While much is valid in this characterization, it’s crucial that US policymakers and strategists not over-read Clinton’s comments in Hanoi, particularly when it comes to ASEAN support.
Beijing’s strategic ambitions in Southeast Asia are real. From China’s perspective, Southeast Asia is its southern doorstep – China has deep roots in the region derived from geography (a common border with Vietnam, Laos and Burma), ethnicity (large, economically powerful urban Chinese communities throughout the region) and history (the “tribute system” that expressed Southeast Asian deference to China over millennia).
In terms of strategic outlook, Chinese leadership evokes the classic realists of 19th century Europe – vitally concerned with prerogatives of sovereignty and the sanctity of borders, animated by calculations of power and influence. From the standpoint of the Chinese regime, Southeast Asia is properly understood as a natural and rightful Chinese sphere of influence, a region where China’s interests are paramount. When these are properly acknowledged, China is prepared to adopt policies that benefit Southeast Asia as well as China – a dominion of Confucian harmony and benevolence. Since the mid-1990s China has emphasized the latter with a sophisticated diplomatic “charm offensive” designed to portray a good neighbor dedicated to the economic advancement of Chinese and Southeast Asians alike.
Statements and actions over the years left no room for doubt that China viewed the South China Sea as Chinese sovereign territory. |
The South China Sea is central to this ambition, but in a special category. China presented an ox-tongue-shaped dotted line, calling it historic waters, effectively encompassing the entire South China Sea and cutting across the major sea lanes. Until recently Chinese officials have cloaked the Chinese claim in a shroud of ambiguity, epitomized by careful avoidance of the key word “sovereignty.” Yet careful examination of Chinese statements and actions over the years left no room for doubt that China viewed the South China Sea as Chinese sovereign territory. Because China lacked the military capacity to enforce this assertion, it made strategic sense to obfuscate rather than clarify intentions. Deng Xiaoping often reminded his countrymen of a traditional Chinese aphorism: “Bide your time and conceal your capabilities until you are ready to act.”
Clinton’s statement at the Asian Regional Forum in Hanoi was delivered in the context of growing concern among Southeast Asian governments regarding China. For months Vietnam had complained publicly and through diplomatic channels about Chinese “bullying” of Vietnamese fishermen and international oil company crews that want to prospect off Vietnam’s coast. Other ASEAN governments, while less overt, showed signs of disquiet over China’s buildup of its armed forces, particularly those designed for offshore power projection. China’s dam building on the upper Mekong, giving it control over that vital river system, has alarming implications for downstream states. The willingness of several ASEAN Ministers to speak out in support of Clinton in Hanoi was testimony to US diplomatic preparatory spadework and growing unease.
Clinton’s initiative
has provided a dose of courage and self-confidence for ASEAN in its relationship with China.
|
There’s no question that the US willingness to stake out a position in support of a maritime commons, not a territorial sea, and multilateral diplomacy, vice China’s determination to deal with the Southeast Asian countries one at a time, was welcome in many regional capitals. It provided a vital, long overdue signal that ASEAN governments did not have to cope with China alone. In that sense Clinton’s initiative has provided a dose of courage and self-confidence for ASEAN in its relationship with China.
That said, US policymakers must have a healthy respect for the limits of what Southeast Asian governments are able and willing to do. To employ an overused metaphor, at least some ASEAN members may be prepared to show up and hold America’s coat if Washington duels Beijing. But don’t expect them to get into the arena in any but carefully circumscribed ways – for a number of compelling reasons.
First, it’s long been a truism that the Southeast Asian governments fear being forced to choose between China and America. No Southeast Asian country wants to make such a choice, but no less an authority than Singapore’s widely respected ambassador to Washington, Chan Heng Chee, has observed that, if forced, the Southeast Asians would generally opt for China. There’s a consensus in the region that the US-China relationship is vital to all concerned. When asked what kind of relationship best protects Southeast Asian interests, the answer is the proverbial Goldilocks principle – “not too hot and not too cold.” A cooperative but not deeply collaborative relationship is just right.
Despite significant investments in military modernization, no Southeast Asian country is prepared
to confront China militarily. |
Second, as previously noted, China’s “influence and strategic reach into Southeast Asia is deep, powerful and growing. This is particularly evident in the economic sphere. As the global financial crisis weakened the credibility of the US and European economies, China emerged as the largest trading partner of ASEAN. Between 2009 and 2010, aggregate trade is up roughly 50 percent year on year. Not coincidentally, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area entered into force at the beginning of 2010.
Third, despite significant investments in military modernization, no Southeast Asian country is prepared to confront China militarily. The only country that has done so in recent decades is Vietnam in response to China’s 1979 invasion across its northern boundary. Vietnamese forces acquitted themselves well in that encounter, but Hanoi is under no illusion that such success could be replicated today. The only naval and air forces that can credibly face off against China in the South China Sea are American – and if it came to that, US commanders should expect little or no operational support from ASEAN, with the possible and limited exception of Vietnam.
Fourth, ASEAN is not the feckless cave of winds that some Westerners describe. But it’s also not a unified, purposeful actor regarding the South China Sea. Several ASEAN governments, including Laos, Cambodia and Burma are highly responsive to Chinese interests and have no proverbial dog in the South China Sea fight. The best Washington can expect – and only if assiduously nurtured – is cautious diplomatic support along the lines of what was seen at the ASEAN forum. It’s an important shift from the past that Washington should welcome, with realistic expectations.
Marvin Ott is a public policy scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and adjunct professor and visiting research scholar with Johns Hopkins University.
Clinton coming to Cambodia
The Phnom Penh Post; Sunday, 17 October 2010 21:55 Buth Reaksmey Kongkea and James O’Toole
(Comments: Hillary Clinton, a good friend of Vietnam, is going to Cambodia to prop up Hun Sen and his CPP to fight China rising power in Asia and in the world. In this context, it is really futile for a group of supporters of Sam Rainsy to ask the revival of the 1991 Paris Agreements. The two main sponsors of the Paris Agreements were the USA and France.
The main motivation of France to host and sponsor the Paris Agreements was to bring Sihanouk back to power, and indirectly legitimize Hun Sen as the real power in Cambodia. The French were well aware of the collusion between Sihanouk and Hun Sen since they first met in a village (Fer-en-Tardenois), near Paris in 1987.
On the other hand, historically France has been on Vietnam side since the 17th century. Because of the similarity of their temperament, there has been a mutual respect and admiration between France and Vietnam; whereas, France has had only contempt towards Cambodia. The French has always known that to control Cambodia, they only need to control the Cambodian king. (Please, also see a companion article posted just below, titled "Clinton to Pay first visit to Cambodia, this week end.")
Therefore, it is unrealistic and futile for Sam Rainsy supporters to ask these two wolrd powers to revive the Paris agreements. Only with impeccable leaders, can Cambodians save Cambodia. Wake up, Cambodians before it is too late! Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 19, 2010)
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United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton will pay a visit to the Kingdom at the end of this month, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong has said.
Koy Kuong said that the US’s top diplomat would visit following the trip by United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who is scheduled to arrive next Tuesday for a two-day visit.
“So far, we do not have the exact date of US Secretary of State Her Excellency Hillary Clinton’s visit yet, but I know that she will be visiting Cambodia at the end of this month after the official visit of His Excellency Ban Ki-moon,” Koy Kuong said.
“We are working on this now, and we will release the formal information when it is completely done.”
The American embassy, however, could not provide details of the visit.
“The embassy has received no confirmation about her visit from Washington,” an embassy spokesman said.
The last time a US secretary of state travelled to Cambodia was in 2003, when Colin Powell held the post. In 1996, top envoy Warren Christopher visited.
Koy Kuong said the purpose of the visit was “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and friendship between the two countries”. Under President Barack Obama, the US has attempted to play a more vigorous role in the region and reassert its presence in the face of a rising China.
At an ASEAN security dialogue in Hanoi this July, Clinton riled Beijing by claiming the US had a “national interest” in seeing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. China’s naval buildup and its territorial claims in the area have been viewed warily by ASEAN members such as Vietnam.
In July, the Kingdom hosted the US-sponsored “Angkor Sentinel” military exercises, which involved more than 1,000 military personnel from 26 countries.
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 25 October 2010 15:03 Sebastian Strangio
(Comments: Hillary Clinton is all about how to enhance the American new alliance in South and east asia to counter China’s rising power in Asia, in particular. The main connection in this strategy is Vietnam. So, this visit is to enhance Hun Sen’s staying power so as to please, the Vietnamese, the Clintons’ old friend.
Is there any chance for the Paris Agreements to be revived, as with Am Sam Rainsy and his supporters have been asking for? Not a chance, as America being one of the main pillars of the Paris Agreements, is also the main backer of Vietnam. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 25 2010)
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United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Cambodia for a two-day state visit this weekend as part of a wider tour of the region, US officials have confirmed.
In a statement issued on Friday, the US state department said Clinton would arrive in Cambodia on October 30, and would meet with government and civil society leaders in Phnom Penh. She is also expected to visit the Angkor Wat temple complex before jetting off to Malaysia.
The statement did not give more details of Clinton’s visit, and US embassy spokesman Mark Wenig said Clinton’s schedule in Cambodia was still being finalised.
The visit comes amid a renewed rift between the US and Cambodia over the repayment of millions of dollars of debt incurred under the Lon Nol regime in the early 1970s, a dispute that threatens to sour bilateral relations. Last month, Prime Minister Hun Sen denounced the debt as “dirty”, linking it with the country’s civil war, and called for its cancellation.
In congressional testimony on September 30, Joe Yun, deputy assistant secretary for the US state department’s bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs, said the US would not cancel the debt because to do so would set a “poor precedent” for other counties in similar circumstances.
Yun put Cambodia’s total debt to the US at about US$445 million, $405 million of which was in arrears and “would be due immediately upon the implementation of any agreement to pay the debt”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong and senior Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yeap could not be reached yesterday.
Clinton’s visit to Cambodia is part of a wider tour aimed at bolstering US ties to Pacific allies, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand.
President Barack Obama’s administration has described Southeast Asia as a key diplomatic priority, saying that the region was neglected by former president George W Bush due to his focus on Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Malaysia, Clinton will seek discussion on “our enhanced ties”, the state department statement said. The Obama administration has stepped up diplomacy with Malaysia, seeing it as a potential force for moderation within the Islamic world. Political relations were rocky when Malaysia was led by Mahathir Mohamad, who was known for his strident criticism of the West. The US sometimes riled Malaysia with past calls to expand democratic freedoms.
Prior to arriving in Cambodia, Clinton will also visit Hanoi for the annual East Asia Summit, less than four months from her last visit to the Vietnamese capital.
Sam Rainsy conviction upheld
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 13 October 2010 19:35 Meas Sokchea
(Comments: this article clearly shows that Sam Rainsy does not have the courage to come back and face Hun Sen’s controlled justice system. The Hun Sen regime had used this no-show by Sam Rainsy to score a major propaganda victory by allowing those Cambodian peasants who were incited by Sam Rainsy to remove the border markers last year, and by doing so they were incarcerated. Now these peasants are free to go home. As the judge in the case had said that:
“Judge Khun Leang Meng said the actions of Sam Rainsy and the two villagers had adversely affected Cambodian-Vietnamese relations, and held Sam Rainsy chiefly responsible.
“This activity has affected the dignity of both countries’ people,” he said. “[We] understood that Meas Srey and Prum Chea uprooted the posts, but they acted on the incitement [of Sam Rainsy].”
This quote also shows how Hun Sen is totally subservient to the Vietnamese domination as contained in the 1979 treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation, and its 2005 Supplements.
As a good friend of mine who used to be an admirer of Sam Rainsy when he was working for an international in Cambodia, has told me that “Sam Rainsy is no Mandela nor Aung San Suu Kyi.”
To have any chance to remain free from the Vietnamese colonialism, Cambodia needs real brave and honest leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, or Mahatma Ghandi. At the moment, there is no such high calibre of leaders in Cambodia in sight. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 15, 2010)
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· Sam Rainsy files complaint against Hun Sen
· Govt hands out old Rainsy apology
· Sam Rainsy gets 10 years
· Sam Rainsy raps 'kangaroo court'
The Appeal Court in Phnom Penh has ordered the release of two villagers convicted along with opposition leader Sam Rainsy in connection with a protest against alleged Vietnamese encroachment on Cambodian territory, though Sam Rainsy’s two-year term was upheld.
The two villagers – Meas Srey, 40, and Prum Chea, 41 – saw their one-year jail terms for destroying public property reduced by just over two months.
The pair was sentenced in January at the Svay Rieng provincial court after an October incident in which they allegedly joined Sam Rainsy in uprooting border markers in Svay Rieng province’s Chantrea district.
The Appeal Court upheld Sam Rainsy’s two-year sentence for racial incitement and destroying public property, and maintained the original fine for all three of 55 million riels (US$12,999), along with an additional 8 million riels Sam Rainsy was required to pay in compensation to district authorities.
After spending nine months and 20 days in prison, Meas Srey and Prum Chea said they were relieved to be heading home.
“I am very excited to return and see my children,” Meas Srey said as she walked out of the courtroom.
Prum Chea said he was “very happy” and “thankful” for his release.
Judge Khun Leang Meng said the actions of Sam Rainsy and the two villagers had adversely affected Cambodian-Vietnamese relations, and held Sam Rainsy chiefly responsible.
“This activity has affected the dignity of both countries’ people,” he said. “[We] understood that Meas Srey and Prum Chea uprooted the posts, but they acted on the incitement [of Sam Rainsy].”
In justifying the villagers’ early release, Khun Leang Meng said they did not have the same level of education about the law as Sam Rainsy. He also noted that they are both first-time offenders with children to care for at home.
Sam Sokong, the lawyer for Meas Srey and Prum Chea, said he would consider appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn their fine because his clients “do not have the ability to pay”.
Sam Rainsy, who is living abroad after fleeing the Kingdom last year, said in an email from Finland that the government should “apologise to Meas Srey and Prum Chea for unjustly arresting them and detaining them for nearly a year.”
He also called on the government to “give them back their rice fields in Svay Rieng province’s Koh Kban Kandal village with appropriate land titles and assurances that they will be allowed to live in peace from now on”.
The decision follows Sam Rainsy’s conviction in abstentia last month for disinformation and falsifying public documents in connection with his attempts to vindicate his claims of Vietnamese encroachment. The opposition leader received a 10-year prison sentence to go with the two-year term handed down in Svay Rieng.
When asked whether he would appeal yesterday’s decision, Sam Rainsy said he had “no respect for any court in Cambodia”, and that “a political solution is needed for this political problem”.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY THOMAS MILLER
| Obama's moral dilemma in Vietnam
By The Hanoist Asia Times; Sep 30, 2010 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LI30Ae01.html
(Comments: right or wrong, this article shows that any country normally must look for its national interests first. In this case, the Obama Administration appears to have given great importance to Vietnam as a partner in its policy to contain the rising power of China in the world and in this case in Asia. However, this approach by the Obama Administration to contain China rising power in the world does not look as a good proposition, it is understandable because, this approach as mainly conceived by Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, whose husband was anti-Vietnam war advocate, and Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, a Bush left over who had advocated the pro-Vietnam stand to contain China (Please see a companion article titled “China stares past Gates in the Pacific.”).
What lesson can Cambodians learn from this policy approach by the Obama Administration? First, there is no good reason to believe that this policy would work for the best interest of the United states. Second, in view of the recent effort of some Sam Rainsy group to petition the French government and other nations namely, the United states to revive the 1991 Paris Agreement is futile.
It is futile, because, the Obama Administration will not agree to this request because it has already chosen Vietnam as its best ally in Asia. As to the French, the French government has always been an ally to Vietnam, because of its long historical relationship and mutual respect. The French always knew that in order to keep Cambodia under their control. they only need to keep the Cambodian king happy. The Paris agreement was pushed by the French to bring back Sihanouk to power, thereby to legitimize Hun Sen, and the Vietnamese as liberators of Cambodia.
Now that Hun Sen and Sihanouk are back in power in Cambodia, and the Vietnamese are in full control of Cambodia, the goals of the French diplomacy has been reached. Therefore, this effort by the Sam Rainsy group and Son Soubert amounts to a futile and empty exercise;, more to comfort themselves than to really reach what they intended to achieve, which is the revive the 1991 Paris agreements. Ignorance of world history and international politics is sinful and very damaging to Cambodia’s national interest, which is its survival. Finally, nobody in the world can save the Cambodian people, except the Cambodian people themselves. This self-preservation of the Cambodian people can only be achieved with a real good leader, which is sorely lacking at the moment in Cambodia. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 14, 2010)
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As the United States deepens strategic ties with Vietnam in response to a rising China, a question now on many minds is how Washington will address Hanoi's well-documented and continuing human rights abuses. The moral dilemma for the Barack Obama administration is how it can reconcile long-standing US support for democracy and human rights with its current realpolitik aims of winning friends and influencing states concerned by an overbearing Beijing.
These two often contradictory strands of American foreign policy were manifested in the media coverage surrounding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presentations at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum held in Hanoi in July. Her public remarks before Vietnamese government leaders on upholding human rights dominated the first day's headlines.
On the following day, however, Clinton turned her focus to security matters. Her declaration that the US had a national interest in maintaining an open South China Sea and supported a multilateral solution to the maritime disputes there between China and ASEAN countries became the biggest story out of the ministerial meeting and still reverberates several months later.
United States-Vietnam watchers have witnessed a considerable warming of ties this year. A highly visible sign was the August visit by the super carrier USS Washington off the coast of Danang, not far from the Paracel Islands occupied by China since 1974 but historically part of Vietnam. Substantive cooperation is also underway in pursuing nuclear cooperation, crafting a multilateral free trade agreement, initiating US weapons sales to Vietnam's military and continuing military-political talks involving both countries' foreign affairs and defense establishments.
Part of the reason for the tighter rapport is good timing. As the 2010 chair of ASEAN, Vietnam became the public face of the regional grouping just when the Obama administration sought to re-engage with Southeast Asia. US officials have recently collaborated closely with their Vietnamese counterparts to prepare for numerous mid- and high-level meetings. Given Hanoi's Foreign Ministry's lack of experience on the international stage, US officials have reportedly played a primary, if not behind-the-scenes, role in coordinating the various US-ASEAN working groups.
The bigger reason, however, is that the US needs Vietnam to contribute toward stiffening ASEAN's spine, so that the 10-country body can collectively counterbalance China's regional ambitions. Most of ASEAN's member states have traditionally pursued an accommodationist policy toward Beijing. With its long history of repelling Chinese invasions, ingrained worries about the Sino threat, and its relative large size within ASEAN, Vietnam is uniquely positioned to rally others in the bloc.
In addition, the US would like to see Vietnam join other countries in the neighborhood - notably India, Australia, Japan and South Korea - to serve as a strategic counterweight to China. Though no US official has publicly said so, the American military also probably covets regular access to Vietnamese ports to project power into the South China Sea, where a third of the world's maritime trade flows yet which Beijing is increasingly treating as its own lake.
Flagging emphasis
With face time between the leadership of the two countries always a scarce commodity, Obama recently met with Vietnamese state president Nguyen Minh Triet and other ASEAN heads in New York and the US secretaries of State and Defense will be in Hanoi in late October. The worry among some Vietnamese democracy activists is that human rights, an issue where progress was crucial for the US to re-establish normal trade relations and support Vietnam's bid to accede to the World Trade Organization, are now being relegated to the diplomatic backburner.
There are precedents for expediency. In the fall of 2004, the George W Bush administration blacklisted Vietnam as a ''Country of Particular Concern'' over serious violations of religious freedom. Two years later, the State Department removed Vietnam from the designation - not necessarily due to measurable progress on religious freedom - but to pave the way for a cordial Bush visit to Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting held in November 2006.
Human rights advocates say that such realpolitik calculations are short-sighted since greater political freedom in Vietnam would better suit long-term US economic and security interests in the region. To be sure, human rights has never been an all or nothing focus of US policy, and each US administration since normalization of relations with Hanoi in 1995 has set calibrations differently on the attention given to the issue.
There is a vocal human-rights lobby in congress that serves as a check on each administration's realist tendencies on foreign policy. Only a day before the US-ASEAN meeting in New York, 10 House members signed a letter calling on Vietnam's government to release activists from the pro-democracy party Viet Tan. During the summer, a congressional hearing into alleged beatings by police of Catholic worshipers in the Con Dau parish in central Vietnam prompted the US Embassy in Vietnam to conduct an investigation that is still unfolding.
In addition to congressional pressures, non-governmental organizations also shape the debate. US-based rights group Human Rights Watch recently released a report on systemic abuses by security police in Vietnam that detailed numerous cases of political dissidents and ordinary citizens suffering from police brutality and deaths in custody.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended a conference marking the 65th anniversary of communist Vietnam's public security forces at which he called on his audience to crush all opposition political groups that could threaten the Communist Party's control. The Hanoi leadership is in the midst of preparing for the 11th party congress, where political promotions and government policies will be decided in January 2011. As in the past, the run-up to this conclave has been accompanied by an intensified crackdown on political dissent.
While addressing the UN General Assembly on September 23, Obama gave his strongest statement yet in defense of the virtues of freedom: "Experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty - that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments." It is against this rhetorical backdrop and an ongoing political crackdown that Obama reaches out to Hanoi.
While US treaty allies have historically tended to be stable democracies, Washington also has a long history of partnering with authoritarian states, though with more mixed results. Obama's overtures towards Vietnam thus represent a policy risk, one influenced by his government's larger strategic concerns over China's rising clout and assertiveness.
The Hanoist writes on Vietnam's politics and people.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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China stares past Gates in the Pacific
By Peter J Brown
Asia Times; October14, 2010
United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was in Hanoi in early October for the first-ever Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus 8 (ASEAN-Plus 8) defense ministers' meetings at a time when there was considerable discord in Asia.
At these meetings, the ASEAN nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) were joined by the "Plus 8" nations - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US
Gates found himself on a stormy sea in Hanoi. Yes, he accepted an invitation to visit China in 2011, but as the time draws near for his departure from the Pentagon, the significance of his visit there is likely to diminish greatly
Before Gates leaves his post - probably next summer - he will face mounting skepticism and criticism both at home and abroad. Gates is now part of a team undergoing a radical change, including the selection of a controversial successor to General James Jones as US President Barack Obama's national security adviser.
In Asia, the US war in Afghanistan is reaching a critical milestone and China is continuing its pursuit of a rapid modernization of its military while testing the borders of its neighbors; this is keeping Gates on his toes.
Gates remains a firm backer of the Japanese in its recent showdown with China over a detained captain of a fishing vessel, and while both Japan and China made an attempt to improve relations in Hanoi, there is no sign of a truly significant thaw.
Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie's decision to lecture Japan's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa about how the incident near the disputed Diaoyu Islands between the Chinese fishing trawler and the Japanese Coast Guard demonstrated that Japan still does a poor job of handling sensitive issues affecting both countries, and is proof of a lasting chill. Liang wanted to remind Japan that Japan needs to resolve these and other matters in a way that ensures that China's approval will be forthcoming. Despite any reports to the contrary, China is obviously still angered by the "illegal detention" by Japan of the Chinese fishing boat captain in September. [1]
This lecture was taking place just as China was issuing a terse announcement about its new maritime enforcement policies. Sun Zhihui, director of the State Oceanic Administration revealed that China intends "to strengthen patrols and supervision in order to protect the country's maritime rights and interests".
At the same time, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at a meeting in Brussels informed Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan that China had no plans to relinquish its claim to the Diaoyu Islands (called Senkaku by Japan) which the Chinese have always depicted as "an inherent part of the Chinese territory."
"The Diaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times," Wen told Kan. [2[
This spat has disturbed Gates for months. So when Gates stepped to the podium at the Vietnam National University in early October, he was mindful that the Chinese military was well-represented at the meeting, and that China was still not ready to set aside its important differences with Japan
Gates informed his audience, "Asia is home to some of the most dynamic, rapidly evolving democratic nations in the world - especially here in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian nations sit astride key global trade routes, are home to a diverse ethnic and religious population, are playing a leading role in promoting Asian regional institutions, and, increasingly, are stepping forward as vital security partners on a range of regional and global challenges. This is why President Obama has made engagement with our Southeast Asian partners a priority of our policy in Asia.
Gates identified several "core issues" including trade, natural disasters, territorial disputes, terrorism and anti-piracy that "can best be addressed through strong multilateral cooperation. Strong bilateral relationships - amongst all Pacific nations - are critical and they remain critical on their own. But they also build the mutual trust and familiarity necessary for multilateral institutions and initiatives to work - the two are mutually reinforcing. And, increasingly we find that relying exclusively on bilateral relationships is not enough - we need multilateral institutions in order to confront the most important security challenges in this region."
Gates anticipated that his call for ASEAN to recognize the value and benefits of "multilateral institutions and initiatives" would not be well received by China which has avoided anything that might engender this sort of framework and thus interfere with their preference for more fragmented, bilateral problem-solving.
China had a little surprise for Gates, however, in the form of an expressed willingness to "actively get involved in the building of a relevant security mechanism ... to contribute to regional peace and stability," said China's Defense Minister Liang Guanglie
"So far there is no settled framework for security cooperation in the region due to the complicated situation here with so many countries and so many interests and concerns," said Ma Zhengang, director of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. "But China welcomes a fair security mechanism [that] goes in line with China's demand for a peaceful environment to enable continuous prosperity." [3]
The mechanism that China envisions is very much a work in progress, and may only offer a veneer of civility to disputes down the road.
The first question posed to Gates following his speech was an indicator that ASEAN is concerned about the US too, and not just the Chinese.
Gates was asked, "ASEAN highly [values] cooperation with the United States for security, stability and peace in Southeast Asia. But how can we be sure that the United States won't just walk away when their national interests are served in a certain way?”
The questioner did not specify an assumed US commitment to Vietnam alone, by the way, after Gates had spoken very frankly about the very promising prospects for US-Vietnamese cooperation going forward. Gates immediately attempted to remove doubts about the reliability and dependability of the US
"We have a presence in Asia. We border the Pacific Ocean. We have long-term interests here and we have friendships that go back many, many decades," Gates replied. "I think all Asia can be confident that the United States intends to remain engaged in Asia as we have been for so many scores of years before and that we intend to be an active participant not only in economic and political matters, but also in defense and security matters." [4]
Gates is accustomed to mounting skepticism, both in Southeast Asia and back in Washington. He has always been confronted by critics as well, including retired US Air Force (USAF) Major General Charles Dunlap who blasted Gates in mid-September for steadily increasing the size of the US Army while damaging the USAF on his watch. Dunlap stated that Gates had greatly contributed to the reduction of the USAF's "size, reputation, and combat power"
Dunlap raised questions about Gates, and his climb all the way to the top of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prior to taking the helm at the US Defense Department - even retelling an old tale about how Gates was once planted in the USAF by the Central Intelligence Agency. [5]
Some of this was old news. Old or not, Beijing might find the notion that the USAF is a hollow force and a second-rate combat power difficult to accept, as Dunlap and others suggest.
After all, the Chinese have watched closely as the USAF conducted and sustained extensive air operations including countless long-range bombing missions over Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously. The USAF's rapidly growing fleet of unmanned aircraft - thousands are in service - and its determination to extend its reach aggressively into space with all sorts of platforms such as the X-37B are compelling Beijing to rethink its use and positioning of airpower. The impression left by USAF F-22's flying along China's red line in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea during recent exercises in the area cannot be overlooked here either.
The Chinese are certainly well aware that certain USAF officers remain unhappy with Gates following a speech that he gave in April 2008 at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Alabama
"This new set of realities and requirements have meant a wrenching set of changes for our military establishment that until recently was almost completely oriented toward winning the big battles and the big wars. Based on my experience at the CIA, at Texas A&M [university] and now the Department of Defense, it is clear to me that the culture of any large organization takes a long time to change, and the really tough part is preserving those elements of the culture that strengthen the institution and motivate the people in it, while shedding those elements of the culture that are barriers to progress and achieving the mission," said Gates. "My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield." [6]
His speech in Alabama combined with his attempt to shift his cost-cutting campaign into high gear - or at least a higher gear - his call for reducing the number of generals and other senior officers in the Pentagon. This and his capping of the number of advanced US F-22 fighter aircraft built by the US have kept Gates in the hot seat for a very long time.
China may be perplexed not just by USAF officers who criticize Gates, but also by the downgrading of the USAF by the US media as it covered the US military's actions in East Asia in recent months. When the US annoyed China by planning to deploy an aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea, or moved key US Navy ships during recent North Korean missile tests, for example, these events ensured that the media coverage was overwhelmingly US Navy-centric. The USAF was rarely covered or mentioned
China cannot rule out the possibility that this is a deliberate ploy on the part of Gates and his team in the Pentagon at this time because the US has worked so hard lately to coordinate air and naval components as part of its emerging "AirSea Battle" master plan
Regardless, China has an easy task when it comes to detecting that Gates is feeling even more heat at home as the result of his supposed comments about Obama's new National Security Adviser, Tom Donilon, who replaced Jones just a few days before Gates departed for Hanoi
Gates, according to Washington Post super-reporter Bob Woodward, is quite critical of Donilon, who is described as a longtime Washington insider and one of Obama's closest advisers. In fact, according to Woodward's new book Obama's Wars, not only does Gates doubt Donilon's level of understanding of the US military, but Gates told Jones that Donilon would be a "disaster" as Obama's national security adviser. [7]
Gates finds himself in full damage control mode as a result and has repeatedly gone out of his way to paint a very different picture of his relationship with, and opinion of, Donilon. Gates said that he welcomed Obama's decision to appoint Donilon as the next national security adviser.
"Tom brings a wealth of experience and seasoning into this critical position, particularly from his current tenure as deputy national security advisor. As I can attest from firsthand experience, Tom has been in one of the toughest jobs in Washington and done it well," said Gates in his official comments on Donilon's appointment. "I value the good working relationship I have with Tom and the rest of the Obama national security team and look forward to continuing our collaboration in tackling the many pressing security challenges facing our nation.”
China has watched others in the top post in the Pentagon who have encountered vocal and open opposition and then fallen quickly from favor. Some have fallen faster than others. China has also observed the inter-service rivalry which continuously surfaces in the US military.
China recognized months ago that the most powerful US military officer charged with keeping a constant eye on China is not Gates, but US Navy Admiral Robert Willard in Hawaii, who serves as head of the US Pacific Command.
All the ASEAN defense ministers who gathered in Hanoi are well aware of him, so what Willard said recently about the US Navy's size mattered. Willard said that if the number of US Navy combatants fell sharply below the 280 now in service, it would cause him to become seriously concerned.
Gates made no mention of Willard or the US Navy's ship count when he answered the critical question which was posed to him a few days later about the dependability of the US over time.
Adequate number of ships or not, Willard will go on forging a partnership between the US and China - not having China as an enemy is Willard's stated goal. China has been making that objective very difficult to achieve lately.
"We've not been particularly encouraged by the character of what's developed," said Willard. [8]
When Gates walks out of his office for the last time, feeling the heat or not, it will be up to Willard to sort it all out so the US can respond quickly. Willard has his hands full for sure.
Notes
1. Chinese defense chief urges Japan to properly handle sensitive issues.
2. Premier Wen reiterates Diaoyu Islands Chinese territory.
3. Beijing backs initiative for Asia security.
4. Remarks by Secretary Gates at Vietnam National University.
5. General: Hey, Newsweek, Gates sure looked different to us in the Air Force.
6. Secretary Gates Remarks at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery Alabama.
7. Does the Pentagon trust Tom Donilon, new national security adviser?.
8. Why world's most powerful military man matters to you.
Peter J Brown is a freelance writer from Maine USA
Red Shirt training reported
The Phnom Penh Post; Tuesday, 12 October 2010 15:02 Cheang Sokha and James O’Toole
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(Comments: this article shows how Hun Sen is doing his best, on behalf of the Vietnamese, to provoke the Thais to be engaged in warfare with Cambodia. If war starts with Thailand, the Vietnamese will again send more troops to come and “help” Hun Sen fight against the Thais. All honest Cambodians know that when the Vietnamese enter Cambodia they will stay in Cambodia, as illegal immigrants first, and later on as colonizers with Hun Sen and Sihanouk tacit support.
For more information on the Hun Sen/ the Vietnamese collusion, please, see an article from the Bangkok Post posted in this page titled “Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese Ties; In spat with "Siem", Hun Sen needs Hanoi in his corner“. From that article, the following sentence is more telling than anything else about what Hun Sen is trying to do for the Vietnamese;
“The debates about the Khmer-Vietnamese border have been restricted by the government, but on the Khmer-Thai conflict, we see not only that the Cambodian government pays special attention, but incites anger against Thailand, complicit in the change of the word from "Thai" to "Siem" to describe the Thai people, using television and radio networks to attack Thailand.
But on the eastern (Vietnam) side, we have never seen the Cambodian government support border protection against Vietnam's encroachments." Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 12, 2010)
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THAI security forces have reportedly accused the Cambodian military of giving weapons training to antigovernment Red Shirts who planned to assassinate Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva.
The reports were based on a press conference given yesterday by Payao Thongsen of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, who headed a probe of the allegations.
“Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation on Monday said investigation found that 39 Thai men have been trained for arms use in Cambodia for a mission to assassinate this country’s key public figures including Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva,” Thailand’s MCOT state news agency said.
“Payao elaborated that the ... three-week training was held in a Cambodian army camp, and they were trained by Cambodian soldiers.”
Eleven of the 39 men were reportedly arrested earlier this month in Thailand’s Chiang Mai province; they are under witness protection “in exchange for useful information which could lead to an arrest of other accomplices”, MCOT said. The Bangkok Post reported last week, citing a Department of Special Investigation report, that the men received their training in a jungle area roughly 200 kilometres from Siem Reap town.
Thailand’s The Nation newspaper, citing Payao, said the DSI planned to ask the Thai foreign ministry to “protest against Cambodia’s alleged interference in Thailand’s national security”.
MCOT said only that the DSI “will seek coordination from the ministry of foreign affairs to contact Cambodian authorities on the case”.
Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said last night that his ministry had yet to receive any request from the DSI.
“We heard of the press report that came out, but we’ll have to check and follow up this with the DSI,” Thani said.
“We’re not quite sure how the news report was reported, whether it was accurate or not, so we’ll check with the source of the information.”
Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong called the accusations “completely untrue”. “Cambodia totally rejects these allegations,” he said, and added that the Kingdom was in no position to provide material or financial support to the Red Shirt movement.
“Cambodia doesn’t even have enough money to develop the country and reduce the poverty of our people, so how can we contribute money to the Red Shirts?” he said.
The inflammatory reports follow news that Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith and a delegation of Cambodian journalists will meet media and government officials in Thailand next week in an effort to promote greater communication between the two countries before the publication of information that may cause “confusion”.
In July, Kingdom authorities apprehended two Thai nationals believed to be Red Shirt supporters and suspected of involvement in a bomb attack on the headquarters of a party in Abhisit’s ruling coalition. Cambodian officials handed the suspects over to Thailand without a formal extradition request from Bangkok.
“This is to show the willingness of the government in fighting terrorism,” Koy Kuong said at the time.
Govt hands out old Rainsy ‘apology’
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 11 October 2010 15:02 Meas Sokchea and Thomas Miller
(Comments: As I said many times before, Rainsy does not have the minimum of moral character to be a leader that Cambodia badly needs to escape Vietnamese colonialism. This clearly shows how Sam Rainsy went out of his way to submit himself to Hun Sen, in this case by apologizing to the Cambodian dictator in 2006.
It is sad to see his current followers still blindly follow him, because as one of his current followers had told me that because there is nobody else to replace him. So, for most Cambodians the second best is the norm. How on earth can Cambodia be liberated from Vietnamese colonialism with only a second best leadership, while the Vietnamese have only chosen the best of their citizens to be their leaders?
Unlike his colleague Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy had chosen to remain abroad and not to come back to face head on with Hun Sen. But, this time, even Sam Rainsy is willing to apologize again, it will not work. Because, this new act of Sam Rainsy of challenging I has to do not with Hun Sen, but with the Vietnamese vital interests in Cambodia, as is framed in the 1979 unequal Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation, and its 2005 official supplements treaty that was signed by King Sihamoni under the pressure from his father, Sihanouk.
How on earth can Cambodia remain free with such low-moral character as Sam Rainsy? Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 11, 2010)
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THE government has distributed what it calls an “apology” letter that Sam Rainsy wrote to Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2006, though the self-exiled opposition leader has disputed that characterisation.
Tith Sothea, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick Reaction Unit, said the government distributed the letter to local media last week so that “national and international public opinion know that Sam Rainsy has apologised”.
In his 2006 letter, Sam Rainsy wrote, “I am regretful for having conducted improper acts towards Samdech [Hun Sen] such as accusing Samdech of being the mastermind behind the grenade attack on the protesters on 30 March 1997 in front of the National Assembly”.
The attack, which targeted an opposition rally, left 16 dead and more than 100 wounded.
Sam Rainsy said in an email yesterday that his 2006 letter was not an apology.
“I might ‘regret’ the way I had ‘improperly’ acted as a tribunal in straightforwardly accusing Hun Sen and Norodom Ranariddh of various crimes because I actually was not a tribunal, whose role is to investigate first before coming to any conclusion and handing down any sentence,” Sam Rainsy wrote.
“However, I have preserved my right to believe, and I do and still believe, in the responsibility of Hun Sen and Norodom Ranariddh in the related crimes.”
Tith Sothea said, however, that the letter had “equal value to an apology”.
The letter was part of a political settlement that allowed Sam Rainsy to return to the Kingdom in February 2006. Sam Rainsy had fled the country the previous year after losing his parliamentary immunity in connection with a defamation complaint filed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
The SRP leader, a veteran of legal battles with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, had accused Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen of corruption in the formation of their coalition government.
On Wednesday, the Appeal Court is set to hand down a ruling in relation to Sam Rainsy’s January conviction at the Svay Rieng provincial court for racial incitement and destruction of public property as part of a protest he staged near the Vietnamese border.
The opposition leader, currently living abroad, received a 10-year jail term at Phnom Penh Municipal Court last month for disinformation and falsification of public documents after he published maps and held a series of press conferences earlier this year to discuss alleged Vietnamese encroachment on Cambodian territory.
Hard turn for Khmer Rouge trial
By James O'Toole
(Comments: This article tells us how important the role of the former Khmer Rouge cadre is to Hun Sen and his CPP regime. After “Duch,” the Tuol Sleng butcher, testimony and “confessions” on how cruel and murderous the Khmer Rouge were. For that service rendered to Hun Sen and the Vietnamese ,he had received a 35 years sentencing with the possibility of being free after having served only a certain number of years in jail.
That was why “Duch” received such a relatively light sentencing after having committed such a large scale and horrific crimes against innocent Cambodian men, women, and children? The real answer to this enigma resides in the way Hun Sen had been able to dilute the so-called Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) with the help of John Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts, who did all he could to help his friends, the Vietnamese, and Hun Sen, to control the objective and development of the KRT. That Vietnamese and Hun Sen objective is to basically use the KRT “to demonize the demons” (to Make the Khmer Rouge look worst than they already are, as mass murderers, but also as racists) so as to make the Vietnamese and Hun Sen and his senior CPP members look more acceptable to the international community.
That goal to “demonize the demons” by Hun Sen and the Vietnamese, has recently been achieved by the confession and the sentencing of “Duch.” That is why, from now on, it would be very difficult for the KRT to bring in for trial other suspects who are now with the senior members of CPP under Hun Sen. That is why Hun Sen has been threatening of starting a civil should other members of his CPP who were members of the Khmer Rouge movement, as this article has indicated.
Sihanouk’s recent trip to Hanoi was not a private one as he said, but was an official trip to ask for forgiveness from the Vietnamese leaders for Hun Sen, whom the Vietnamese had accused of allowing Sam Rainsy to violate the spirit of the imposed 1979 Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation and its 2005 supplements by the removing the temporary border markers in Svay Rieng province, in 2009.
Therefore, for those Cambodians who expect that “real justice” can be obtained from the KRT, they are bound to be disappointed and surprised to see only “practical justice” will be rendered, as Craig Etcheson has recently suggested.
I hope my comments have added some clarification and some missing important elements to this very important article that were not raised by “Asia Times.” Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 9, 2010)
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PAILIN - Despite an awkwardly attached prosthetic leg, deputy governor Mey Meakk cut an authoritative figure as he strode into a recent community meeting in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin along the Thai-Cambodian border.
The radical Maoist movement's former members have maintained political influence here in the transition from war to peace, despite atrocities committed during their rule that resulted in the deaths of perhaps 2.2 million people.
Provincial governor Y Chhean was formerly the head of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's bodyguards; another deputy governor, Ieng Vuth, is the son of former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, social action minister Ieng Thirith. Mey Meakk spoke admiringly of the elder Iengs at the forum, rejecting claims that their hands were "soiled with blood" as leaders of the former regime, which governed from 1975-79.
The two were indicted last month at Cambodia's United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal, along with former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan and chief ideologue Nuon Chea, for genocide and crimes against humanity. Mey Meakk, himself a former secretary to Pol Pot, was joined at the meeting by tribunal staff, including British co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley, who were there as part of a community outreach effort to answer questions about the indictments and the work of the court.
While Mey Meakk's view that the four Khmer Rouge defendants are "victims" is a minority one, his broader concern points to the challenge the tribunal faces as it attempts to move forward with its work and build trust with the Cambodian government. "Continued, prolonged investigations of other people may not meet the goal of national reconciliation," Mey Meakk said.
In July, the tribunal sentenced former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, to 30 years in prison for crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva Conventions. While praise for the tribunal's first verdict came in immediately from the diplomatic community, outspoken Prime Minister Hun Sen's voice was conspicuously absent.
The 58-year-old strongman was not in the country on the day of the judgment and he offered no public comment on the landmark verdict in the days that followed. The silence was indicative of his government's often tense relationship with the court. It was over a week later that Hun Sen finally addressed the judgment, and only as part of a wide-ranging address at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh.
"I respect the verdict handed down by the court. The government has no right to interfere or put any pressure on the court," he said.
His comments offered an implicit rebuttal to critics who have charged that the prime minister and other officials have sought to influence the tribunal's work. Such charges have been levied by international civil society groups, with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative alleging in July that "the ability of individual Cambodian actors to resist interference by senior political figures and still maintain a position within the Cambodian legal system is limited".
The tribunal's hybrid setup has helped to drive those concerns. Unlike internationally administered war crimes tribunals created for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Khmer Rouge tribunal - or the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as it is formally known - prosecutes crimes under both domestic and international law and has international and Cambodian jurists working alongside one another.
Judicial chambers house Cambodian majorities, though super-majorities are required to secure judgments, meaning that at least one international judge must sign on for a decision issued by domestic judges to come into force. The task of applying international standards of justice to a Cambodian legal system still struggling to recover from the Khmer Rouge period has been considerable.
Yet over the course of the Duch case, the ECCC appeared to succeed in conducting a fair, procedurally sound trial, according to legal experts. Case 001, as the Duch proceedings were known, was seen in part as a dry run for the looming larger second trial.
Hard-core case
Hearings in Case 002, referred to by court officials as the ECCC's "core case", are expected to begin early next year and last at least two years. They will see the elderly Iengs, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea - the most senior surviving members of the Khmer Rouge - all brought together before the court's trial chamber.
Because the suspects will strongly contest the proceedings and the documentary evidence linking them to atrocities committed by low-level cadres is fragmented, their prosecution is expected to be significantly more difficult than that of Duch, who essentially pleaded guilty after leaving a voluminous paper trail from his time as a prison administrator.
"Case 002 is the most political, the most important, and the most difficult," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which helped to compile much of the evidence used by the court. Chhang called the second case "a test of trust between the UN and the government in seeking justice for the Cambodian survivors".
The government already tussled with the UN over the handling of the next case. Last year, court investigators attempted to summon as witnesses six senior officials from Hun Sen's ruling political party. The summonses - signed by French investigating judge Marcel Lemonde, though not his Cambodian counterpart - were subsequently ignored, with the government supporting the officials' decision not to offer testimony.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said at the time that the tribunal's foreign staff could "pack their clothes and return home" if they were upset with the decision. Lemonde ultimately concluded that it would be impractical to try and compel the officials' testimony, and declined to pursue the matter further.
The two foreign judges in the court's pre-trial chamber last month recommended an internal investigation of alleged political interference in relation to the incident, though such an investigation was deemed unnecessary by their three Cambodian colleagues.
Court staff have also been divided on foreign versus local lines over the question of whether to pursue suspects beyond Case 002. Hun Sen has come out strongly against further prosecutions, claiming that they could stoke unrest and compromise the hard-won peace he achieved in the late 1990s when the Khmer Rouge movement finally collapsed.
"I prefer the failure of the tribunal than to let the country fall into war," the premier said last year.
His statement followed on the announcement that foreign prosecutor William Smith had made submissions for the investigations of five additional suspects - whose identities remain confidential - in two new cases. His Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, opposed the submissions, echoing the arguments by Hun Sen in claiming such prosecutions could threaten Cambodia's national security.
Nevertheless, Lemonde announced in June that he was moving forward with preliminary investigations into Cases 003 and 004, despite a last-second loss of backing from his Cambodian counterpart, You Bunleng, who initially signed off on the investigations before retracting his support. His sudden change of heart stoked further suspicions of government interference.
The prime minister's claims of a reignited civil war may be exaggerated. But it is certainly the case that former senior Khmer Rouge members continue to wield political influence in Cambodia. That's particularly true along the Thai border, where figures like Y Chhean preside over patronage networks established directly from their former status within the movement.
While court officials have said prosecutions will end following the third and fourth cases, Hun Sen, himself a former low-ranking Khmer Rouge soldier, may feel there is little to be gained by disturbing relations with ex-cadres who have been peacefully integrated into government.
Whether Cases 003 and 004 actually proceed, there is hope that the court has laid a foundation for the smooth completion of Case 002, where the defendants are already in their late 70s and 80s. Youk Chhang claimed that the Cambodian government had "begun to see the credibility of the court" following Duch's conviction, an important element for the tribunal's success.
"The court has to obtain trust, not only from the people of Cambodia, but also from the government," Chhang said.
Back in Pailin, the assembled audience of ex-Khmer Rouge members still harbored suspicions. The visiting tribunal staffers assured them, however, that the court's mandate is limited, and that rank-and-file members of the movement such as themselves had nothing to fear.
"I was so worried when I heard about the ECCC because I was afraid I would be arrested," said Pailin resident Meas Chea, 59, a former Khmer Rouge foot soldier. He professed remorse for his role in the conflict and said he had been following the progress of the court. 0 "I felt better after the court announced the Duch verdict," Chea said. "The court is finding justice not only for survivors, but for all those that died.”
James O'Toole is a Phnom Penh-based journalist.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Sam Rainsy appeal to be held today, court official says
The Phnom Penh Post; Tuesday, 05 October 2010 15:01 Meas Sokchea
(Comments: Is this appeal by Sam Rainsy a publicity stunt or a plain naivety. He should have known that, unlike in the past, when Sam Rainsy accused Hun Sen of corruption and after asking for forgiveness, Sam Rainsy was given his seat back in the National Assembly.
But, this time, he should not expect to receive any favour from Hun Sen or the king, as this impetuous act of removing the temporary border markers last year, is not a matter of internal problems of grievances between Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy, but it is a matter of great importance to the Vietnamese and their policy of imperialism and colonialism toward Cambodia, as implicitly contained in the 1979 so-called Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation, and its 2005 supplements.
The recent trip to Hanoi by Sihanouk, along with his wife Monique and his son, King Sihamoni, was to try to appease the Vietnamese leaders not to remove Hun Sen from power, as they did with Pen Sovann earlier, in this Sam Rainsy’s border markers stunt.
Sam Rainsy should have known that by going against the Vietnamese, he will not be forgiven by Hun Sen or by the king. In addition, he should have expected and prepared to serve jail term, as great leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, and Nelson Mandela had done in their respective time and countries, if he is a true and brave leader, as he had attempted to do so in this border markers case.
He should have the courage as Mandela had done and Aung San Suu Kyi is doing, by going to jail, and not hiding in France, as he is now doing. Sam Rainsy does not have the courage and other moral characters to be the leader that Cambodians so badly need to escape Vietnam’s deadly colonization. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 5, 2010)
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THE Appeal Court plans to hold a hearing in the case that saw opposition leader Sam Rainsy sentenced to two years in jail earlier this year, after two failed attempts in recent months.
“Sam Rainsy’s appeal will be held tomorrow,” court Prosecutor Nget Sarath said.
“We will not postpone anything anymore. We have enough of everyone, including lawyers and defendants.”
Svay Rieng provincial court in January found Sam Rainsy guilty of racial incitement and destroying public property after an October 2009 incident in which he led villagers in uprooting border demarcation posts in Svay Rieng province’s Chantrea district. Two Svay Rieng villagers – Meas Srey and Prum Chea – received one-year jail terms in the same case.
Sam Rainsy, who is in self-imposed exile in Europe, said the posts had been placed inside Cambodia and thus constituted evidence of Vietnamese encroachment.
On June 6, Sam Rainsy’s lawyer and the lawyer for Meas Srey and Prum Chea walked out of the Appeal Court because the two villagers had not been brought to a scheduled hearing.
In August, a second attempt to hold an appeal hearing was aborted because Sam Sokong, the lawyer for the two villagers, was absent.
Yesterday, both Sam Sokong and Choung Choungy, Sam Rainsy’s lawyer, said they planned to appear today.
“I do not think of hope. I am just committing to try my best to defend my client’s rights as best as I can,” Choung Choungy said. “I have strong documents and I have already prepared them to defend my client.”
Government lawyer Chan Sok Yeang, meanwhile, said he was confident that the guilty verdicts would be upheld.
Sam Sokong said yesterday that his clients had been serving pretrial detention since December, and their sentences are almost finished.
On September 23, Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Sam Rainsy in absentia to 10 years in prison on charges of disinformation and falsifying public documents.
Those charges stemmed from evidence he publicised on the SRP’s website and in video press conferences following his January conviction that also alleged Vietnamese encroachment on Cambodian territory.
Public indictments handed to former KR
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 29 September 2010 21:33 James O'Tool
(Comments: it is important to have the background information on these murderous Khmer Rouge leaders. The details on their criminal activities and their cruelties are now public knowledge with this article. However, as I have said many times before, it is not enough for the Hun Sen to show how insane and cruel these Khmer Rouge leaders are, but it is more important for the Vietnamese and Hun Sen to demonize the demons by showing above all they are racist, and especially Vietnamese haters, as the following sentence indicates:
“She is also alleged to have given speeches inciting hatred of the Vietnamese, a group against which she and the other suspects are accused of perpetrating genocide.
“The Yuon enemy is to be attacked really all out,” she allegedly said.”
If this tribunal is really fare and independent, it should also bring those former Khmer Rouge cadre who are now high government officials in the Hun Sen regime, to be tried at the tribunal. But, Hun Sen kept threatening that there will be civil war, if other former Khmer roué who are now his close associates in his government.
Is this real justice or a parody of justice, or to be more appropriate a “practical justice to use the word that was recently suggested by Craig Etcheson.
Real justice has a long way to go to be realized in Cambodia. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 4, 1020)
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The Khmer Rouge tribunal has made public the indictments of four Khmer Rouge figures expected to be tried next year, revealing concrete accusations about the role the defendants allegedly played in the deaths of perhaps 2.2 million Cambodians.
The indictments, contained in a single, 739-page document known as the closing order, are the product of a more than three-year investigation that concluded earlier this month.
As a result of their investigation, the court’s co-investigating judges brought charges including genocide and crimes against humanity against former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, social action minister Ieng Thirith, head of state Khieu Samphan and Brother No 2 Nuon Chea.
Under court rules, hearings before the Trial Chamber are limited to facts set out in the indictments.
“The facts spelled out in the closing order will basically be the foundation for the trial hearings,” United Nations court spokesman Lars Olsen said. “The Trial Chamber is bound by the facts set out in the closing order, so this will show what issues will be subject to discussions during trial.”
Defence lawyers for Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea have already made notice of their intent to appeal against the closing order. The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber has four months to rule on such appeals.
The closing order contains a detailed history of the Khmer Rouge movement and the roles of the four suspects within the hierarchy of Democratic Kampuchea.
Nuon Chea is termed regime leader Pol Pot’s “righthand man”, and is alleged to have met daily with DK defence minister Son Sen on matters of internal security.
“Nuon Chea regularly instructed on security matters,” a former Khmer Rouge telegram operator told investigators.
A number of comments from former S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, are included in the closing order. Duch was convicted in July in the tribunal’s first case, and his testimony is expected to figure prominently in Case 002.
“Everything had to pass through Nuon Chea, even if it was in scope of the military,” Duch told investigators, adding: “Nuon Chea clearly told me that all people who were sent to S-21 had to be killed.”
The four Case 002 suspects are housed together with Duch at the ECCC detention facility on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Nuon Chea is said to harbour resentment towards Duch for failing to destroy the S-21 archive, and the former prison chief’s testimony implicates Brother No 2 on numerous occasions.
“There is strong evidence that Nuon Chea was in charge of the S-21 security centre and its associated worksite S-24 (Prey Sar) from the time of their establishment,” the closing order says.
“Through his various roles in the [Communist Party of Kampuchea], Nuon Chea participated in the reeducation of ‘bad elements’ and the killing of the ‘enemies’ both inside and outside the Party ranks.”
Nuon Chea, with Ieng Sary, is said to have helped develop a 1976 directive in which the power to execute “enemies” both inside and outside the ranks of the Khmer Rouge was delegated to officials at the zone level. Khieu Samphan may also have helped shape this directive, the closing order says.
Ieng Sary is quoted boasting on numerous occasions about the regime’s “smashing” of enemies. He is said to have been part of meetings in which decisions to eliminate enemies were made, though he himself said in 1996 that he was in constant fear of being purged.
“Ieng Sary stated during an interview that whenever he returned to Cambodia from an overseas visit, ‘I thought to myself, ‘Will they take me to S-21?’ or ‘Will I get to meet my wife?’” the closing order says.
Duch told investigators that Ieng Sary’s approval was needed for the arrests of 112 Ministry of Foreign Affairs cadres who were eventually sent to S-21.
Khieu Samphan, Duch said, had personal authority to “smash” enemies “inside and outside the ranks” of the regime. He is alleged to have worked at the high-level Office 870, tasked with policy and maintenance of communication among senior cadres, and some witnesses say that he led the office.
In his capacity as head of state, Khieu Samphan allegedly gave numerous speeches endorsing the regime’s attacks on “enemies”.
As a participant in Standing Committee meetings, he was “aware of the practice of torture and execution” and “knew of and was involved in the purges of senior leaders of the CPK”, the closing order says; through his alleged work at Office 870, he would have been involved in investigations of cadres who were subsequently purged.
Ieng Thirith is said to have assisted in developing the policy of eliminating “enemies” through her work at the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Council of Ministers. She allegedly told a subordinate in 1978 that cadres from DK’s Eastern Zone, subject to widespread purges, had “betrayed” the regime.
The orders to purge Northwest Zone secretary Ruos Nhim and Eastern Zone secretary Sao Phim were allegedly based on a 1978 report Ieng Thirith made to Pol Pot. She is said to have announced the names of “traitors” during meetings at the Ministry of Social Affairs, and numerous cadres from her ministry, whom she had the authority to purge, were allegedly arrested and executed.
She is also alleged to have given speeches inciting hatred of the Vietnamese, a group against which she and the other suspects are accused of perpetrating genocide.
“The Yuon enemy is to be attacked really all out,” she allegedly said.
Hun Sen brands Rainsy complaint “stupid”
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 29 September 2010 17:38 James O'Toole
(Comments: This article shows two things; the first one is the fact that Hun Sen is in full command in Cambodia, Two, is the fact that Sam Rainsy is as fake as he ever has been. In this context, “Hun Sen rebutted the claim that he was involved in the 1997 grenade attack, saying Sam Rainsy wrote to him in 2005 apologising and retracting the accusation.”
Is this a real courageous leader that Cambodians needs to defend the highest interests of Cambodia? Courage is what Sam Rainsy needs. He does not seem to have it. Yet, those who still believe in Sam Rainsy continues to have faith in him and his ability to save Cambodia. Most of those who support him had said that he is the only one, around. That is how Cambodians approach the leadership issue; compromise, compromise!!!
For Sam Rainsy to sue Hun Sen in an American court for the 1997 grenade attack on his party, shows that he is not at all aware of what really is going on in the United States. With Bill Gates, and Hillary Clinton strong support for Vietnam and therefore for Hun Sen, there is no chance that any positive outcome will be coming out of this judicial act against Hun Sen, even though the US judicial system is politically independent. The Brussels court is more appropriate for that matter, as Hun Sen had provocatively suggested.
As, I have said many times before. Cambodia cannot get out of its current deadly path, without a real brave and courageous leader of the same high moral standard that Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, and Aung San Suu Kyi have. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 30, 2010)
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Prime Minister Hun Sen has branded opposition leader Sam Rainsy as “stupid” for filing a criminal complaint against him in New York, saying United States courts had no power over him.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen lambasted his longtime political foe, who is living in self-imposed exile.
“US courts do not have the right to do anything to the Cambodian prime minister,” he said. “The key for opening up [Sam Rainsy’s] return to the country is Hun Sen.”
Last week, Sam Rainsy filed a criminal complaint against Hun Sen, alleging his involvement in a 1997 grenade attack on an opposition rally that killed 16 people and wounded more than 100.
Hun Sen rebutted the claim that he was involved in the 1997 grenade attack, saying Sam Rainsy wrote to him in 2005 apologising and retracting the accusation.
He dared Sam Rainsy to file a complaint in Brussels while the premier is there for the ASEM 8 Summit next week.
“When the dog bites my leg, I don’t bite the dog’s leg – I use my leg to kick the dog,” he said. “I won’t implore you and there is no court that would dare to do anything with me.”
On September 23, Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Sam Rainsy to 10 years in prison for releasing maps allegedly showing Vietnamese border encroachments.
SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said the complaints were filed in the US because the court system was independent and could find justice after the grenade attack.
“We believe in the US courts. They are different from the Cambodian courts, which are under the influence of the ruling party,” he said.
| Cambodia's courts deal blow to opposition
By Irwin Loy
Asia Times; Sep 25, 2010
(Comments: It is sad that Ou virak has missed the main point in Hun Sen recent row with Sam Rainsy. As I have already written in this page that this time Sam Rainsy will not be allowed to return unless he is willing to serve the 10 years jail term. The main reason is the fact that Sam Rainsy had violated the 1979 Treaty of Friendship Peace, and Cooperation and its 2005 Supplements, not of what Ou Virak had suggested that:
“Parliamentarian Mu Sochua, a Sam Rainsy Party member, was convicted of defaming Prime Minster Hun Sen in 2009 after she had earlier accused him of insulting her.
Sam Rainsy has previously faced legal problems; he fled the country in 2005 after was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in relation to a defamation lawsuit. A court later sentenced him in absentia, but he returned after receiving a royal pardon and led his party to opposition status in the following election.”
In other words, an opposition party member can defame Hun Sen without going to jail, as in Mu Sochua’s case; but he or she cannot criticize the Vietnamese without going to jail, as in Sam Rainsy’s case. To criticize the Vietnamese is the greatest crime that an opposition party member can do in Cambodia under Hun Sen regime controlled by the Vietnamese.
Unlike the last time, this time, Sam Rainsy will have to serve the jail term or he will not be allowed to come back to Cambodia. As I have already written in this page that the main reason why Sihanouk along with his wife Monique and his son the current king of Cambodia, Sihamoni recent trip to Hanoi, was the plead for Hun Sen and to precisely promise that Sam Rainsy will never be allowed to come back without going to jail, for violating the 1979 Treaty and its Supplements. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 27, 2010)
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PHNOM PENH - Questions hover over the future of Cambodia's political opposition, as well as room for dissent, in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of the exiled leader of the country's largest opposition party to 10 years in prison.
On September 23, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted opposition leader Sam Rainsy on charges of disinformation and falsifying public documents. He was accused of fabricating maps that he claimed showed neighboring Vietnam had encroached on Cambodian soil - a politically charged subject in a country whose government has close ties to Vietnamese authorities, yet where centuries-old antipathy among the population also lingers.
The court's decision comes after a separate January conviction that saw Sam Rainsy sentenced to two years in prison after he uprooted a marker along a stretch of the border with Vietnam. He was convicted in absentia in both cases, living in self-imposed exile in France.
In an e-mailed response to questions on Thursday, Sam Rainsy said the charges against him were "of a strictly political nature."
"Only a kangaroo court can issue the type of verdict we saw today," he wrote. "Everybody rightly says that the judiciary in this country is everything but independent, being only a political tool for the authoritarian ruling party to silence any critical voices.”
Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the Sam Rainsy Party, said the court ruling was an alarming sign that the government had grown increasingly intolerant of criticism. "The courts are being used as a political tool to crack down on the opposition party," he said. "It's a big step backward for democracy in Cambodia.”
Thursday's ruling adds to lingering questions over whether Sam Rainsy will even be allowed to stand in the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2013. If the convictions are upheld, it would leave the Cambodian opposition without its leader and one of its most prominent members.
"The court issued a verdict to sentence Sam Rainsy. But it's not just Sam Rainsy. It sentences the whole country," Yim said. "The younger generation sees that when you stand up to protect your country, they will be tried like this. It sets a bad example.”
If the court ruling means that Cambodia's opposition leader could not run in the coming election, it would cast doubt over the state of democracy in the country, said Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.
"Cambodia endorses liberal, pluralist democracies," Koul said. "So the freedom to have different political opinions is very important. But now the case shows there are some political differences that are not tolerated. This will affect the full participation of the opposition parties.”
He said he believed the court decision showed Cambodia's democracy was still "immature", 17 years after its first post-war elections. He said that while there had been a sharp decrease in political violence in recent years, battles were instead being played through the courts.
Authorities, however, reject accusations of political interference in the judicial system
"This was a decision of the court," government spokesman Phay Siphan said of the ruling against Sam Rainsy. "We encourage the courts to do whatever the courts feel is just. We respect their sovereignty. Nobody influences them.”
Instead, Phay said any blame for Sam Rainsy's predicament lay squarely on the opposition leader himself. "When you commit wrongdoings, you have to respect the rule of law," he said. "Like everyone, political opposition parties have to abide by the rule of law.”
Rights groups, however, say the courts have increasingly been used as a means to silence opposition to the ruling Cambodian People's Party. Villagers protesting land disputes, rights workers, journalists and politicians have all faced problems with the legal system in recent years.
Parliamentarian Mu Sochua, a Sam Rainsy Party member, was convicted of defaming Prime Minster Hun Sen in 2009 after she had earlier accused him of insulting her.
Sam Rainsy has previously faced legal problems; he fled the country in 2005 after was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in relation to a defamation lawsuit. A court later sentenced him in absentia, but he returned after receiving a royal pardon and led his party to opposition status in the following election.
But it remains to be seen if he will be able to find a similar resolution to his current problems.
Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said it appeared the government was intent on trying to end Sam Rainsy's political career. "I think this government believes it can effectively stop Sam Rainsy from returning to Cambodia for good," Ou said. "It's a very clear, political move by the government to prevent Sam Rainsy from coming back and effectively weakening the opposition altogether.”
Ou said he believed the government knew that international reaction to its jailing of a key opposition figure could be harsh.
By keeping Sam Rainsy outside Cambodia, any condemnation may be less severe than if he were imprisoned, Ou said. "The fact is he's out of the country. It's not like you have somebody in jail," he explained. "The government understands this. As long as Sam Rainsy remains outside, you're not going to hear too harsh criticisms from all sides."
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Cambodia needs a true democratic government
The Phnom Penh Post; Friday, 24 September 2010 15:00
By Ou Virak
(Comment: this letter to the Phnom Penh Post editor by Ou Virak, the director of the CCHR, is another tangible proof that Youk Chhang is working with Hun Sen’s regime, ant for the truth and real justice, as he claimed. It also shows that Youk Chhang implying that Ou Virak and he are on the same level of understanding the Khmer Rouge trial process, is far form the real situation. Ou Virak came out clearly denouncing the totally politicized justice system under Hun Sen, while Youk chhag has been working with the Hun Sen regime since the beginning.
How then could it be that Youk Chhang is so satisfied with the whole khmer Rouge Tribunal organization and operations. It is clear that there is nothing much in comment between Ou virak’s standing on justice and that of Youk Chhang. Ou virak’s stand is clearly with the international standard of justice, whereas Youk Chhang’s stand is with Hun Sen, and his friends, Craig Etcheson, and Ben Kiernan, who support ‘practical’ and ‘real’ justice at the Khmer Rouge trial. (Please, see the article titled ‘Pre-Trial Chamber rules on Political interference.” posted below.)
Youk Chhang has been serving the Vietnamese and Hun Sen’s objective of “demonizing the demons,” to make them look better in the eyes of the international community, while claiming to search for the truth and real justice for the Cambodian people. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 24, 2010)
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Dear Editor,
Today is Constitution Day in Cambodia, a public holiday that gives Cambodians a chance to celebrate and reflect on the enactment of the 1993 Constitution.
Article 1 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia states that Cambodia shall be ruled according to the principles of liberal democracy and pluralism.
This Constitution Day the Cambodian Center for Human Rights encourages Cambodians to reflect on the unique potential of liberal democratic systems to both uphold civil and political rights and promote equitable economic growth.
In 2010, the liberal democratic system guaranteed in Cambodian’s Constitution is in a fragile state. A recent report issued jointly by 17 NGOs – Cambodia Gagged: Democracy at Risk – raises concerns that the Royal Government of Cambodia, led by the Cambodian People’s Party, is dismantling the fundamental pillars of democracy and gradually moving Cambodia towards a one-party political system.
The report documents the use of state power against parliamentarians, media, lawyers, human rights activists and other citizens to silence debate and close the space for pluralism and diversity of opinion within Cambodia. Given the emergence in Cambodia of an autocratic, authoritarian political system at the expense of liberal democracy, we should examine whether this new system is an effective political model to promote the interests of Cambodian citizens.
The CPP-led RGC has promoted similar priorities to those espoused by the “Beijing Consensus,” emphasising Cambodia’s achievement of high levels of economic growth over the past decade and promoting the CPP as the only political force capable of maintaining peace and stability in Cambodia.
The RGC presided over economic growth in double digits between 2004 and 2007 prior to the global economic slowdown. However, much of this growth resulted from crony capitalism benefiting a few well-connected businessmen, CPP senators and foreign investors.
The RGC has also promoted its ability to maintain stability. However, the price of such a trade-off can include the violent suppression of those promoting alternative solutions to a country’s problems, such as the 1997 grenade attack, and the 2004 assassination of labour leader Chea Vichea in Cambodia, or on a larger scale, brutality such as the Tiananmen Square massacre in China in 1989.
The political system in operation in Cambodia today carries the veil of democracy, but this is a charade. In a true liberal democracy, opposition politicians are able to speak and present policy proposals in parliament, citizens are able to organise protests and strikes without being charged with incitement, and the courts are respected by citizens as an independent arbiter of conflicts.
This Constitution Day, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights calls on members of all political parties to reflect on the democratic values enshrined in Cambodia’s supreme law and to consider how they can work together with dignity and respect to build a truly democratic system capable of benefiting all Cambodians.
Ou Virak
Cambodian Center for Human Rights
Pre-Trial Chamber rules on political interference
The Phnom Penh Post; Posted by: jamesotoole on Sep 10, 2010
Tagged in: pre-trial chamber , political interference , Nuon Chea , Khieu Kanharith , Ieng Sary , Hun Sen
The Pre-Trial Chamber at the Khmer Rouge tribunal (ECCC).
In a decision published online today, the Khmer Rouge tribunal's Pre-Trial Chamber issued a rare split decision on whether an investigation into alleged political interference by the Cambodian government in the work of the court is warranted. International judges Rowan Downing and Catherine Marchi-Uhel called such an investigation "imperative... to ensure that the charged persons are provided with a fair trial". Cambodian judges Prak Kimsan, Ney Thol and Huot Vuthy said, however, that the court's Co-Investigating Judges were right to conclude that no investigation was necessary. In the absence of a super-majority of judges, the appeal by lawyers for Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea asking for investigation was dismissed.
In their opinions, the judges focused largely on statements given last year by Information Minister Khieu Kanharith, who said the government opposed the summoning of six senior ruling party officials by the court, and that foreign jurists upset with the decision could "pack their clothes and return home". The six summoned were Senate President Chea Sim, National Assembly President Heng Samrin, senators Ouk Bunchhoeun and Sim Ka, Minister of Finance Keat Chhon and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong; none have appeared before the court. Prime Minister Hun Sen said he too opposed the summones, as they could create procedural unfairness for the defendants.
The split between the international and Cambodian judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber echoes earlier disagreements between foreign and domestic court officials. Pending investigations in the court's third and fourth cases are currently being conducted unilaterally by International Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde, in the absence of support from Cambodian judge You Bunleng; the Cambodian Pre-Trial Chamber judges and Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang have also registered their opposition to the investigations.
Read the full text of today's decision here.
Youk Chhang sending mixed signals about tribunal corruption
the Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 22 September 2010 15:00 Ang Udom
(Comments: Youk Chhang had written in his web site as the main objective is to “Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997, MEMORY & JUSTICE; ...a society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of its own history.” But is he really independent and searching for the truth? This letter to the editor of the Phnom Penh Post appears to have shown the opposite. Youk Chhang is compromising whenever it is convenient for him.
He has a conveniently “flexible morality.” Youk Chhang is compromising the concept of real justice by accepting the practice of corruption in the current Khmer Rouge Tribunal as a negligible and necessary evil, when he was reported to have said that;
“Mr Youk Chhang reportedly dismissed the Ieng Sary defence filing to disqualify the ECCC Presiding Trial Chamber Judge, Nil Nonn, as an attempt to “invite controversy”, adding that the problem of bribery and petty corruption at provincial courts was common knowledge in Cambodia. Mr Youk Chhang is quoted as saying “It’s publicly known”. The comments made by Mr Youk Chhang imply that there is corruption in Cambodian courts, and that this should simply be accepted.”
Is this a way of searching for the truth? In my book, it is not so. But, I am not surprised at all by Youk Chhang behaviour. I have been observing him for a very long time. If he can work for and with people like Ben Kiernan (A well-known supporter of Vietnam), and Craig Etcheson (a well-known advocate of ‘practical justice’ for Cambodia), it is normal that he has that king of “negotiable” morality. The other main questions are, how could Youk Chhang expect the truth to come out of this Khmer rouge Trial, when working with Hun Sen’s well-known politicized and corrupt justice system, and how Youk Chhang has been able to survive Hun Sen’s murderous regime if he really never criticized the Vietnamese in this tragedy of the Cambodian people.
On the contrary, Youk Chhang goes out of his way to make sure that Hun Sen and the Vietnamese objective to “Demonize the Demons,” is reached, by making the Khmer Rouge the worst killers in the world, which they are, but, also to make them racists, for killing the minorities (Chams, Vietnamese, Chinese) in Cambodia, thereby to make make the Vietnamese and Hun Sen the lesser evils. However, one should not forget that the Khmer Rouge has no discrimination when it comes to killing human beings. But, Youk Chhang should also remember that the Khmer Rouge had killed, in the vast majority, Cambodian men, women, and children, not foreigners as he implied.
Please, take a look at his incomprehensible response, posted just below, in his letter to the editor, and that by Ou Virak, also posted below. Is Virak's view of the KRT the same as Youk Chhang's, as he implied? To me not at all. But, I leave it up to you, dear readers, to make that decision by going through both Ou Virak and Youk Chhang's letters to the editor. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 23, 2010)
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Dear Editor,
I write to express disappointment regarding the comments made by Mr Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, in the article titled “Ieng Sary team seeks ECCC judge’s ouster” (The Phnom Penh Post, September 20). Mr Youk Chhang reportedly dismissed the Ieng Sary defence filing to disqualify the ECCC Presiding Trial Chamber Judge, Nil Nonn, as an attempt to “invite controversy”, adding that the problem of bribery and petty corruption at provincial courts was common knowledge in Cambodia. Mr Youk Chhang is quoted as saying “It’s publicly known”. The comments made by Mr Youk Chhang imply that there is corruption in Cambodian courts, and that this should simply be accepted.
The implications from these comments are shocking, especially in light of the Report of the United Nations Human Rights Envoy, Surya Subedi, which only this weekend branded the Cambodian judiciary as corrupt, incompetent and lacking independence. Mr Youk Chhang’s comments are all the more disappointing in light of his position as the director of DC-Cam, an NGO purportedly established to find the truth regarding the Khmer Rouge period. The ECCC presents an opportunity not only for Cambodia to find out the truth about the Khmer Rouge period, but also to act as a model court contributing to the rule of law in Cambodia. Mr Youk Chhang’s comments promote neither opportunity, but rather accept corruption as a given in the Cambodian judiciary. If Mr Youk Chhang is so blasé in accepting a potentially corrupt judiciary at the ECCC, perhaps he should look at his own position as director of DC-Cam, and whether he is promoting the aim of his organisation.
Ang Udom
Michael G Karnavas
Co-lawyers for Ieng Sary
A Reply from Youk Chhang, Phnom Penh Post, September 23, 2010.
Youk Chhang Smashes Ieng Sary, Defense Team
I regret that yesterday the Phnom Penh Post misattributed its two letters to the editor, making it appear as if Ou Virak of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) had drafted a stinging criticism of me, and Ieng Sary defense lawyers Ang Udom and Michael Karnavas had drafted a well-argued plea for investigation of potential political interference in the work of the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Yet, the mistake ultimately demonstrates the cohesion of Cambodian civil society, as Ou and I were immediately in touch to discuss the humorous error.
The defense team’s reprimand was in response to my statements for the article “Ieng Sary team seeks ECCC judge’s ouster” (September 20). There were two points I had hoped to make clear in my comments, a selection of which appeared in the article. First, the public must prepare itself to accept that Ieng Sary may pass away before trial, as he is old and his health is fragile. I certainly do not wish him death as we approach the Pchum Benh ancestor holidays, when all spirits are fed so they will not go hungry or suffer from their bad deeds. It is imperative that the trial move forward without delay so that Ieng Sary may live to tell us why Khmer killed Khmer and be judged accordingly.
I seek the truth, and would thus be a fool to support corruption in Cambodia, including at the Extraordinary Chambers/Defense Unit. Constructive defense challenges at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal benefit Cambodia, which suffers from a lack of fair trial standards in its national courts, but it is easy for the Ieng Sary defense to attack everything and themselves politicize the proceedings. Ieng Sary deserves better than to die and have his lawyers declare “victory.” He deserves to be tried.
Youk Chhang
Documentation Center of Cambodia
Magazine: Searching for the Truth, September 23, 1020
Wednesday, 22 September 2010 15:00 Ou Virak
Dear Editor,
The Phnom Penh Post recently reported on the split decision of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s Pre-Trial Chamber, which rejected a request from defence lawyers for a judicial investigation into allegations of political interference in the work of the Tribunal (“KRT denies inquiry request from defence”, September 12).
The allegations stemmed from the failure of government officials and King Father Norodom Sihanouk to respond to summonses issued in 2009 and provide witness testimony before the Tribunal.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights writes to express its concern at the paralysis resulting from the PTC decision, which has negated the ability of the Tribunal to respond definitively to these allegations before trial proceedings commence, and consequently damaged the ability of the Tribunal to act as a model court by demonstrating the conduct of fair and independent trials.
The refusal of the seven individuals summonsed to provide testimony undermines the ability of the Tribunal to deliver a trial that is fair to both the charged persons and victims. One of the core requirements of a fair trial is that all evidence capable of assisting in the ascertainment of the truth should be available for consideration unless ruled out by another rule of evidence.
By denying the Tribunal testimony that might include key inculpatory or exculpatory details, those who have ignored summonses have compromised the rights of both victims and the charged persons to have all available evidence presented for consideration.
The Cambodian judges of the PTC failed to provide adequate consideration to the severity of the allegations of political interference and the consequent impact on the fair trial rights of the accused.
Rule 35(2) of the KRT’s internal rules provides that where the Co-Investigating Judges or judicial Chambers have reason to believe that a person may have failed to comply with an order to appear before them without just excuse, or may have interfered with a potential witness, the authority exists to conduct an investigation or refer the matter to the appropriate Cambodian or United Nations authorities.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith publicly stated that “the government’s policy was that [those summonsed] should not give testimony”.
Hun Sen also appeared concerned that in providing testimony, those summonsed might inadvertently cast a negative light on his regime, questioning why they were of interest to the Tribunal and taking care to emphasise that the officials concerned helped topple the regime and establish the KRT to bring justice to Cambodians. As noted in the strong dissenting judgment of the PTC’s international judges, Catherine Marchi-Uhel and Rowan Downing: “no reasonable trier of fact could have failed to consider that the [facts previously referred to in the dissenting judgment] and their sequence constitute a reason to believe that one or more members of the RGC may have knowingly and wilfully interfered with witnesses who may give evidence before the [Co-Investigating Judges].”
The KRT was supposed to operate according to international standards, acting as a model for Cambodia’s courts. The failure of both the Co-Investigating Judges (who effectively deferred the politically sensitive decision to the PTC) and the PTC to respond adequately to the allegations of political interference and continuing refusal of key witnesses to testify is likely to undermine the fairness of any trial resulting from the investigation in Case 002.
The split decision along national/international lines has reinforced perceptions that Cambodian judicial officers at the Tribunal are preoccupied with the concerns of the government.
The KRT appears to have reached a crossroads; the success or failure of the Tribunal will be judged in large part by its ability to administer a fair trial adhering to international standards in Case 002, the most significant case likely to go to trial.
The CCHR calls on the United Nations expert on the KRT, Clint Williamson, to pay special attention to the implications of Friday’s decision of the PTC for the credibility of both the KRT and the United Nations.
If the KRT administers an investigation and trial that cannot be judged as fair to the accused and victims, it will set a dangerous precedent for the Cambodian courts and is likely to result in a failed – or negative – legacy for the wider Cambodian justice system.
Ou Virak
Cambodian Center for Human Rights
PM lashes out at opposition
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 20 September 2010 20:52 Cheang Sokha and Brooke Lewis
(Comments: Once again, I have been warning the Cambodian community tha,t this time Sam Rainsy will not be allowed to returnto ambodia unless he is willing to serve the two-year jail term. The main reason this tough stand by hun Sen, I am saying it again is the fact that Sam Rainsy had violated the spirit of the 1979 so-called treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, and its 2005 supplements, which basically do not allow any Cambodian to criticize Vietnam for any violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty.
Unless Mu Sochua, who did not violate the1979 treaty, but only challenged Hun Sen’s power, she was allowed to return to cambodia, withoutserving the two-year jail term. But, Sam Rainsy’s situation is totally different. Hun Sen has already been informed by the Vietnamese leaders that he may follow former Vietnamese installed Prime Minister Pen Sovann’s fate, if he does not maintain the integrity of the meaning of the 1979 treaty, which is to allow Vietnam total freedom to violate Cambodia sovereignty.
What is more tragic for the Cambodina people, is the fact that Sihanouk is totally subservient to Hun Sen and the Vietnamese. That is why Sihanouk along with his wife Monique, and his son, King Sihamoni, went to Hanoi to plead with the Vietnamese leaders on behalf of Hun Sen (See an article titled “A picture is worth a thousand words” posted below), and promised that Hun Sen will never allow Sam Rainsy to come back to cambodia, without going to jail. Narnahkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 22, 2010)
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PRIME Minister Hun Sen has lashed out at the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, criticising it for attempting to attract local and international intervention in cases against exiled leader Sam Rainsy.
The comments, delivered during a ceremony inaugurating a new bridge on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, came three days after Senate President Chea Sim wrote a letter to the SRP’s Acting President Kong Korm, informing him that he would not petition the government to allow Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia under renewed parliamentary immunity.
Sam Rainsy, who is currently abroad, was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail after an incident in October last year in which he helped villagers uproot wooden demarcation poles near the Vietnamese border.
Kong Korm wrote to Chea Sim on September 11, saying that the Senate had a “duty” to try to broker a compromise that would pave the way for Sam Rainsy’s return.
But the premier said yesterday that Sam Rainsy should stop trying to avoid serving time in prison.
“If you don’t come to jail, the prison will go to take you,” he said. “In recent days [the SRP] tested Samdech Chea Sim, but Samdech Chea Sim responded that [he would] let the court proceed with its job.”
Hun Sen said he believed the SRP had expected him to respond personally after Kong Korm sent the letter to the Senate, and that this expectation was contradictory because the SRP had “cursed me every day as a puppet” of Vietnam.
He said that the opposition party should not expect his help to resolve Sam Rainsy’s case if it truly believed he was powerless.
“I am a puppet, I don’t have a right to resolve it,” he said.
He said the SRP had also sought help from the United States, but that he was unconcerned about the issue being raised during his upcoming visit to America.
“Another test is that they will use international [pressure], including the president of the United States,” he said. “In four more days I will meet US President Barack Obama. What will he say to me?”
SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said that Sam Rainsy had not formally requested help from the US, but that he had “met with several US congressmen” in recent months, with whom he had discussed his sentence. Yim Sovann said the party had also sought help from the United Nations and the United Kingdom.
“We appeal to all independent countries to put pressure on the government,” he said, and added that, as development partners, the international community had a “duty” to pressure the government to resolve the case.
“Sam Rainsy is the president of the major opposition party. We cannot say that Cambodia is a democratic country when the opposition leader has been sentenced by the court for political reasons,” he said. “Everbody knows that the court in Cambodia is not independent.”
The ceremony marked the opening of the Prek Phnov bridge, which links National Roads 5 and 6A, and is intended to ease congestion around the Cambodian-Japanese Friendship Bridge.
The premier said that the Ly Yong Phat Group, which is owned by ruling party senator and business tycoon Ly Yong Phat, invested US$42.5 million in building the bridge.
He noted that while motorcycle drivers and pedestrians can use the bridge free of charge, the company will charge a toll of 5,700 riels (US$1.34) for small vehicles, such as minivans and cars, and 34,000 riels (US$8) for large trucks.
“The LYP Group will have to transfer the bridge to the government [after 30 years] and the government will consider whether to continue charging the fee or not,” he said.
Yim Sovann said that private companies should not finance public infrastructure with the intention of charging for its use.
“In this country people pay taxes for road maintenance,” he said. “People shouldn’t have to pay tolls for national roads.”
The LYP company also owns a toll bridge in Koh Kong province.
No deal for SRP chief to return
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 20 September 2010 15:02 Sebastian Strangio
(Comments: This article clearly shows that Sam Rainsy and his supporters do not understand the mistake he was making by removing the border markers in Svay Rieng province a few months ago. This impetuous act by Sam Rainsy may look good to most Cambodians but it does have grave implications for Cambodia as a whole. The removal of the borders markers violates the 1979 and its 2005 supplements Treaty of Friendship, Peace, and Cooperation, which literally forbids all Cambodians to criticize the Vietnamese government and its policy in Cambodia, no matter what the reason behind that criticism.
Hun Sen and Sihanouk are designated as enforcers of that treaty by the Vietnamese. That is why Sihanouk had recently to take a special trip to Vietnam along with his wife Monique and his son, King Sihamoni. The main purpose of the trip was for Sihanouk to plead with the Vietnamese leaders for pardon for Hun Sen.
For the Vietnamese, Hun Sen as an appointed prime minister by the Vietnamese, as in the case of the dismissed Vietnamese appointed Prime Minster, Pen Sovann before, had the obligation to defend at all costs, the meaning of the treaties mentioned earlier. The Vietnamese made it clear to Hun Sen that he can only stay if the treaties are implemented as in full and without any exception, that is not to allow any Cambodian to criticize Vietnam activities in Cambodia for whatever reason, especially the border issues.
Sam Rainsy is to smart enough not to know that. Then, it is naïve or dishonest for him and his supporters to expect that Hun Sen would consider making any deal with them on this important violation of the real meaning of the 1979 Treaty and its 2005 supplements, which is to allow free hands for the Vietnamese to do whatever they want in Cambodia. I would not have charatetrized Sam Rainsy's act of removing the border markers impetuous, had he dared to return and face Hun Sen "justice," as Mu Sochua who had the courage to do so. But, Sam Rainsy has no such courage. Is this a kind leader who pretends to save Cambodia?
Does he not know how many years the greatest wolrd leaders such as; Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, , Vaslav Havel, and Aung San Suu kyi had to spend or still spending their time in jail?
Notice that Sihanouk is fully cooperative with Hun Sen in this tragic chapter of the Cambodian history. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 20, 2010)
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THE head of the Senate has rejected a request from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party that its embattled president be allowed to return to Cambodia under renewed parliamentary immunity.
In a letter, Senate President Chea Sim wrote that the body’s hands were tied due to the Kingdom’s constitutional separation of powers.
“The Senate will not be able to intervene with the government in order to drop the complaints … because the complaints against HE Sam Rainsy are under the jurisdiction of the judiciary, which is separate from the legislative branch and executive branch,” said the letter, addressed to the SRP’s Acting President, Kong Korm.
Chea Sim’s letter, dated Friday, came in response to a request from Kong Korm on September 11, which said the Senate had a “duty” to try to broker a political compromise that would pave the way for Sam Rainsy’s return.
The SRP leader, who is in self-imposed exile in Europe, was sentenced to two years in jail after an incident in October last year in which he helped villagers uproot wooden demarcation poles near the Vietnamese border.
A verdict on two more charges – brought against him after he released maps showing what he claims are Vietnamese territorial encroachments – is set to be handed down at Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday.
Yesterday, Sam Rainsy issued an appeal to “parliamentarians of all countries”, saying that his only crime was an “unyielding denunciation of corruption and human rights abuses” and an “unwavering defence of the people who have elected me as their representative”.
Senate Secretary General Oum Sarith declined to comment yesterday, but Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said that wiping away Sam Rainsy’s charges would set a “bad precedent” for Cambodia, despite the use of such arrangements in the past.
“Sam Rainsy wants to make a wave as a celebrity in the media, but he has to take the time to show that he has principles,” he said.
Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy, said that unlike earlier cases, where Sam Rainsy’s spats with the government were resolved through compromises, officials were showing “no real urgency” to broker his return.
“I hope there will be some sign of resolution and Sam Rainsy will be able to come back,” he said. “I hope the issue can be resolved quickly.”
Thailand, Cambodia look beyond Thaksin
By James O'Toole
Asia Times; September 18, 2010
(Comments: This article shows that Hun Sen is trying hard to be the savior of Cambodia by standing up to Thailand in the Preah Vihear conflict. In reality, it is a way to say to Vietnam that he is doing his best to make Vietnam the friend of Cambodia and Thailand its worst enemy.
In reality, Vietnam had demanded that Hun Sen be harsher against those Cambodians who dared to protest against Vietnam continued interference against Cambodia’s sovereignty. It is this context that one should understand Sihanouk was asked by Hun Sen to go and pay respect (Kowtow) to the Vietnamese President of the Republic to plead on behalf of Hun Sen, and to say that Hun Sen remain unflinchingly loyal to Vietnam, as a proof, the Cambodian dictator continues keep the dispute with Thailand as the number one issue in order to make Thailand the real enemy of Cambodia and not Vietnam.
That is also why Hun Sen has recently bought more armored cars and tanks to build up the Cambodian army firepower against the fabricated enemy Thailand. As Australian professor, Carlile Thayer had pointed out that Hun Sen can match up against the Thai army, when it wrote that:
“Carlyle Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy, said these efforts were largely "grandstanding" for the benefit of a domestic audience. "You can't take it at face value - there's no way that Cambodia is ever going to acquire the military power to take on Thailand in a conventional military conflict," Thayer said.
He said the militarization that Hun Sen has been pushing in relation to the border may be an effort to consolidate his support in the military, an institution that is the only conceivable counterweight to his near-absolute power. "It keeps the military on his side if you talk about an external threat or their importance," Thayer said. (Please, also see a companion artilce titlted "New Tanks and APCs arrive" posted just below
It is also sad to see how Sihanouk continues to save his skin by totally serving Hun Sen and his master, the Vietnamese interest against Cambodia’s national interests. The Vietnamization continues without any organized and meaningful resistance from the Cambodian people. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 18, 2010)
PHNOM PENH - Former Thai premier and fugitive from justice Thaksin Shinawatra's arrival on his private jet in Phnom Penh last year was broadcast live on local television, the climax of weeks of diplomatic intrigue that brought relations between Thailand and Cambodia to their lowest point in years.
Arriving nominally as an economics adviser to the Cambodian government, the ousted leader served mainly as a pawn in a spat between Bangkok and Phnom Penh that saw the countries withdraw their respective ambassadors and engage in an unflattering war of words over the next several months.
The abrupt announcement of Thaksin's "resignation" from his post last month has been cause for rapprochement, with ambassadors returned to their posts and a meeting scheduled between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Thai counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva in New York next week.
Yet for all the pomp attached to Thaksin's comings and goings, the current rapprochement between Thailand and Cambodia can only steal the spotlight for so long from their more fundamental disagreement over their shared border. Ironically, Thaksin's advisory appointment caused significant economic harm for Cambodia.
In retaliation, Bangkok tore up a 2001 memorandum of understanding on joint development of a 26,000 square kilometer area in the Gulf of Thailand thought to contain significant oil and gas reserves. Cambodia's exports to Thailand plunged 50% year-on-year in the first six months of 2010, while many Thai investors have likely been dissuaded from investing in Cambodia in view of the acrimony between the countries.
Politically, though, Thaksin provided Hun Sen with a chance to ratchet up tensions with a traditional enemy and intensify his border rhetoric to a rather outlandish extent. "Do you dare to swear on magic that could break your neck, on a plane crash or a dissolution of the countries, that your soldiers did not invade Cambodia's territory?" Hun Sen said in a speech last year, apparently addressing Abhisit.
Tension over the border erupted in 2008 after the listing of Preah Vihear temple as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site for Cambodia, as both sides laid claim to a 4.6-square-kilometer patch of land adjacent to the temple. The issue flared up again last month after a meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage committee in which Cambodia submitted management plans for the temple.
The countries are in the process of demarcating their border, but talks have been stalled since last year pending approval of the latest round of negotiations in the Thai parliament. Abhisit and his Democrat party-led government are under intense pressure from hardline elements of the nationalist "yellow shirt" movement not to give any ground in the territorial dispute, and a vote in the Thai parliament to approve the latest negotiations was again postponed last month, to the ire of Cambodian leaders.
Cambodia has been pressing aggressively to bring attention to the dispute, appealing to both the United Nations and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for assistance. ASEAN assistance was required, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said, to help avoid "large-scale armed conflict" along a frontier in which at least seven soldiers have been killed in periodic skirmishes since 2008.
These appeals have irked Thai officials, who have repeatedly stated their opposition to border talks in any forum but a bilateral one. The move to cut ties with Thaksin may be the latest element of Cambodia's border strategy, said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
"It gives Cambodia the upper hand when the Thaksin issue has been played out," Ou Virak said, with the move allowing Phnom Penh to "separate the Preah Vihear conflict or tension from other kinds of issues".
Amid its diplomatic maneuvering, Cambodia is also bidding very publicly to upgrade its military capabilities at the border. This week, the government announced the purchase of dozens of T55 tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Meanwhile, in a bizarre bit of corporate charity that has drawn condemnation from rights groups, a local television station is collecting donations to help build reinforced concrete bunkers for combat troops at the border.
Carlyle Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy, said these efforts were largely "grandstanding" for the benefit of a domestic audience. "You can't take it at face value - there's no way that Cambodia is ever going to acquire the military power to take on Thailand in a conventional military conflict," Thayer said.
He said the militarization that Hun Sen has been pushing in relation to the border may be an effort to consolidate his support in the military, an institution that is the only conceivable counterweight to his near-absolute power. "It keeps the military on his side if you talk about an external threat or their importance," Thayer said.
For Thailand, the border dispute with Cambodia remains a key issue in a domestic political crisis that shows no sign of being resolved any time soon.
"The real reason that the border issue is a problem is not because Cambodia has these claims - the real reason the border issue is a problem is that the yellows accuse the reds [Thaksin supporters] of giving away a national asset," said Michael Montesano, a visiting fellow at Singapore's Institute for Southeast Asian Studies.
"The government doesn't want to have to deal with large-scale yellow-shirt demonstrations, and the lives of people in the government can be made very difficult and the lives of their families can be made very difficult if they are seen as somehow stepping back from the yellow cause."
Signs do, for the moment, point to a warming of relations. With the return of their ambassadors - absent for more than nine months - Cambodia and Thailand have now resumed full diplomatic ties, and Abhisit and Hun Sen are scheduled to meet again in October following their meeting in New York next week.
Montesano said Thaksin's "resignation" had in fact likely been brokered in secret talks between the two governments, with Bangkok perhaps hoping to get closer to apprehending red-shirt leaders known to be hiding out in Cambodia after the May 19 military crackdown on protests in Bangkok.
In a surprise move in early July, Cambodian authorities apprehended two Thais believed to be red-shirt supporters and suspected of involvement in a bomb attack on the headquarters of Bhum Jai Thai, the second-largest party in Abhisit's ruling coalition. Phnom Penh handed over the suspects to Thai authorities without a formal extradition request from Bangkok.
"This is to show the willingness of the government in fighting terrorism," Koy Kuong, Cambodia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said after their arrests.
At the very least, Thaksin's departure has given Hun Sen and Abhisit the political cover to hold talks on economic issues and other obvious common interests. The border dispute continues to loom large in their relationship, however, and for the moment, appears indifferent to external developments.
Just one day after Thaksin's resignation was announced, the Cambodian government's Press and Quick Reaction Unit (PQRU) issued a statement accusing Abhisit of becoming "an accomplice and a sponsor of criminal-prone activity" by the yellow shirts.
"Once again, the [PQRU] urges Thai political figures to put an end to the malicious campaign of innuendo, suggestion and speculation to fault Cambodia by raising the issue of the Temple of Preah Vihear," the statement read.
James O'Toole is a Phnom Penh-based journalist.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
New tanks and APCs arrive
The Phnom Penh Post; Monday, 20 September 2010 19:54 Cheang Sokha
A SHIPMENT of 100 tanks and armoured personnel carriers purchased from Ukraine have arrived at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, officials said today.
In Sokhemara, chief of the Preah Sihanouk provincial coast guard office said that according to a report that arrived with the shipment, the government purchased the batch of 100 new tanks and armoured personnel carriers from Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union.
“It will take about a week or so to remove all the tanks and armoured personnel carriers from the port,” he said.
Last week, officials refused to divulge any details about the shipment, including the country that provided the vehicles and how many were purchased.
Defence Ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat, who joined officials in receiving the shipment at the port, could not be reached for comment. Military officials who were responsible for unloading the shipment declined to comment.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong also could not be reached for comment.
He said last Tuesday that the government had recently purchased a second shipment of vehicles, which was expected to arrive “at a later date”.
“I think this is a normal procedure for a country to buy such weaponry to protect its territory from any intentional encroachment from foreign countries,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Tea Banh returned to Phnom Penh last night after a week in China, where he observed the production of weapons at specialised factories, said Nem Sowath, the minister’s chief of cabinet.
| US Southeast Asia pose risks China clash
By Clifford McCoy
Asia Times; Sep 1, 2010
(Comments: Again and again, the United States never learned any past lessons of its many involvements in southeast Asian affairs. After the recent war in Vietnam, in which it had attempted and failed to prevent Vietnam from spreading Communism in Southeast Asia, once again, the United States is now trying to go the opposite way by using Vietnam to stop the spreading influence of China in Southeast Asia. This policy can lead the United states to clash with China and this problem is well described by this paper as follows:
“The rising rivalry between Washington and Beijing for influence in Southeast Asia has until now focused mainly on soft power initiatives involving diplomatic exchanges, official aid and economic incentives. But expanding US military ties, provocative statements about sensitive issues such as the South China Sea and overwrought reactions could jeopardize the peaceful competition. A return to the hard-power politics of the Cold War is something most ASEAN nations would prefer to avoid. But as US-China competition shifts toward security issues, countries may increasingly be pressured to choose sides.”
The above-observation by Asia Times Clearly explains why Hun Sen is now being supported by Obama, and especially by Hilary Clinton and Bill Gates, the Secretary of State, and the secretary of Defense of , respectively, of the Obama’s administration. Again, the United States is going the wrong way. But, for Cambodians, it is important to use this opportunity for the Cambodian opposition parties to use this emerging problem for Vietnam and the United States by closely monitoring how Vietnam is behaving vis-à-vis China. Nobody can stop the rising power of China, especially in Asia. Therefore, Vietnam may stand to lose more than to gain, if it chooses to go along with the United States in confronting China. The Cambodian people should always keep China’s interests high in their mind. This does not mean that Cambodia should expect China to save it from the Vietnamese colonization. Ultimately, it is only the Cambodian people who can help Cambodia remaining free of Vietnamese onslaught. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 13, 2010)) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SINGAPORE - As the United States strengthens its military-to-military ties in Southeast Asia, the risk is rising that the "soft power" competitive dynamic for regional influence with China could soon return to the "hard power" confrontation of the Cold War.
Stepped up US military links through a series of joint exercises and new defense agreements with countries in the region, in tandem with renewed political engagements, are becoming more apparently aimed at containing China's growing influence. With China already on edge over large-scale US-South Korean naval exercises held in the East Sea/Sea of Japan in July and directed at North Korea, state media in Beijing announced that China
simultaneously carried out military exercises in the South China Sea, claiming them as the largest of their kind
Despite that competitive show of force, Washington appears undeterred in reasserting its strategic interests in the region. United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates has committed to attending the inaugural meeting of defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hanoi in October - and the South China Sea is expected to be a hot topic of discussion. The US commander of the Pacific Command, Admiral Robert Willard, told reporters in Manila on August 18 that Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea was causing concern in the region, but the US would work to ensure security and protect important trade lanes.
In the latest move to strengthen military ties, the United States courted its old adversary Vietnam with a week-long series of bilateral exercises focused mainly on damage control and search and rescue, held aboard the USS John S McCain after it docked in the central Vietnam port of Danang on August 10. At the same time, a delegation of Vietnamese military and political officials were hosted aboard the carrier USS George Washington as it steamed through the South China Sea. The exercises and visit were billed as part of wider celebrations to mark the 15th anniversary of US-Vietnamese relations. Military-to-military ties have improved steadily since being restored by a 2003 port call to Ho Chi Minh City by an American naval vessel, and earlier this year Vietnamese shipyards repaired two ships of the US Military Sealift Command.
Enemy cum ally
The exercises were followed on August 17 by the first high-level defense dialogue between Washington and Hanoi. US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Robert Scher met Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh in Hanoi for talks that reportedly focused on military exchanges, training and collaboration in search and rescue, and humanitarian and disaster-relief operations. The sale of US defense equipment was reportedly not discussed, and Vietnam still remains banned under US legislation from receiving so-called ''lethal-end'' military equipment such as small arms, fighter aircraft or combat vessels. Previous talks in 2008 were on the State Department-Foreign Ministry level.
While none of these military-to-military moves are particularly provocative to China, they are steps towards building trust between US and Vietnamese armed forces. Vietnam has recently shown signs of being receptive to a US military presence in the region to counterbalance China and provide more muscle behind its claims in the South China Sea. With the high-level dialogue now complete, Washington and Hanoi can now move on to more substantive arrangements.
In June, US President Barack Obama and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced in Jakarta that the two countries would form a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The agreement, signed by Scher and Indonesian Director for Strategy and Planning Major General Syarifudin Tippe, is intended to further integrate existing defense collaboration.
A new defense cooperation agreement covers training, defense industry collaboration, procurement of military equipment, security dialogue and maritime security. This was followed on July 22 by a US announcement that it would resume cooperation with Kopassus, Indonesia's elite special forces unit. The announcement followed a meeting between Gates and President Yudhoyono.
United States assistance to Kopassus was cut by the so-called Leahy law, which bans training and other assistance to foreign military units where there is credible evidence they have committed gross human rights violations. Since the 1970s, domestic and international human rights organizations have accused Kopassus of human rights abuses in Aceh, East Timor, Papua and during riots in Jakarta in 1998.
The ban can be waived, however, if the US secretary of state certifies that "effective measures" have been taken by a foreign government to bring members of the relevant unit to justice. Washington has said training will not be offered to Kopassus immediately and it has reserved the right to vet individual Kopassus members before participation in any US-led training. The agreement, however, removes the last obstacle to resuming full military relations between the two countries.
Additionally, it provides the US potentially greater influence with Indonesia's politically powerful military given Kopassus's traditional role as a stepping stone for future military leaders. The US supported Indonesia's military throughout the Cold War, but relations soured in 1991 when the US Congress cut Indonesia's eligibility for international military education and training (IMET) and to purchase certain types of "lethal" military equipment after soldiers massacred more than 100 peaceful demonstrators in East Timor. Then-president Bill Clinton cut all remaining military ties when Indonesian troops and local militias rampaged through East Timor in the wake of a vote to secede from Indonesia in 1999, although they were quietly restored the following year.
The events of 9/11 and the Bali bombings in 2002 gave new impetus to improving relations with the world's most populous Muslim nation, and military relations have since steadily improved. In 2003, despite strong opposition from Congress, funds were released for training Indonesian officers. This was followed in 2005 by the repeal of an arms embargo. Between 2006 and 2009, the US Global Train and Equipment Program provided Indonesia with over $47 million to fight smuggling, piracy and trafficking. The installation of radar systems, particularly in the Makassar and Malacca straits, has been sponsored by the Department of Defense.
In 2009, the US and Indonesia co-hosted the Garuda Shield multilateral military exercises in Bandung. More than 1,000 soldiers from nine countries participated in drills focused on peace support operations. In June this year, another multilateral exercise was held in West Java to boost cooperation and professionalism in UN peacekeeping operations. Jointly organized by the Indonesian and American militaries, soldiers from Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal and Brunei Darussalam also took part. Indonesian troops also take part in the annual Cobra Gold exercises in Thailand.
Cambodia is yet another ASEAN country in which the US has taken military interest. In July, the US and Cambodia co-hosted the Angkor Sentinel '10 multilateral military exercises involving 1,200 soldiers from 23 countries. Although aimed at providing training in peacekeeping operations, many observers saw these first exercises between the two countries as a way for the US to get closer to Cambodia's military.
The US has provided Cambodia with over $4.5 million in military equipment and training since 2006 and Cambodia joined the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) regional naval exercises for the first time this year. The warming trend has not come without controversy as human-rights activists protest against the inclusion of Cambodian military units linked to human rights violations in US military training programs.
Stepped up US interest in improving defense ties with Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia is seen by observers as a component of Washington's new strategy to re-engage with Southeast Asia and to re-assert its commitment to the region's security. This re-engagement has often been viewed as aimed at countering China's growing assertiveness in territorial disputes and naval presence in the region, concerns shared by several ASEAN members. Both Vietnam and Indonesia occupy strategically important geographical positions in the South China Sea and the straits of Malacca and Makassar. They share a historical wariness of Chinese ambitions that may make them more willing to partner with the US.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton irked Beijing in July when she declared the US has a "national interest" in seeing disputes over territorial claims in the South China Sea settled through multilateral talks, which she said the US was prepared to facilitate. China sees the area as in its own strategic sphere of interest and is particularly sensitive about the issue. Clinton's remarks were seen as siding with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia over territorial disputes that involve sovereignty over potentially large oil reserves.
In an August 16 annual report to Congress prepared by the Department of Defense, predictions were made about increased Chinese patrols in the South China Sea. It also raised concerns about increased investments in weapons, such as long-range missiles, submarines, and aircraft carriers, that would allow Beijing to project power into the area.
The rising rivalry between Washington and Beijing for influence in Southeast Asia has until now focused mainly on soft power initiatives involving diplomatic exchanges, official aid and economic incentives. But expanding US military ties, provocative statements about sensitive issues such as the South China Sea and overwrought reactions could jeopardize the peaceful competition. A return to the hard-power politics of the Cold War is something most ASEAN nations would prefer to avoid. But as US-China competition shifts toward security issues, countries may increasingly be pressured to choose sides.
Clifford McCoy is a freelance journalist.
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Jean Baptiste Chaigneau and the Nguyens
http://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html
(Comments: As this article indicates, the French contributed to the Nguyen army, especially the navy and the artillery, which led to the victory of the Nguyen lords of the South over the Tayson brothers, as well as the Trinh lords of the North. after two hundred years of civil war, the Nguyen lords had triumphed over the North Trinh and that how Vietnam was able to conquer Champa and Kampuchea Krom, now Cambodia proper.
For the Vietnamese, fighting for the right ideas and leadership is a precondition for further advance and development of the Vietnamese society and people; while some educated Cambodians have recently advocated for all Cambodians to be united at all cost without any pre-condition.
Another major difference between Cambodians and Vietnamese is the fact that the Vietnmese never allowed foreigners to dominate their destiny, they used these foreigners to assist them, as in this case, they used the French to teach them how to use artillery and modern navy. While Cambodians always asked for help from their worst enemies, namely; the Vietnamese or Thais, whenever their leaders were fighting against each other, not for national, as in the Vietnamese case, but for personal interests, as in the recurrent infightings between members of the royal family throughout the Cambodian history, since the Angkor time.
Also, the French knew that the Cambodian kings are not only king but god, therefore they just took care of the kings by providing them with money, opium, and concubines, and they can run the country as cheaply as possible. That is why Cambodia was known as the least cost and the most taxed state of the former Indochina federation.
How could this proposal of not criticizing the leaders by these educated Cambodians improve the situation in Cambodia, by not changing, and by doing the same old things over and over again and again? Without open discussion and cirticism, Cambodia can never get out of the current deadly mess where it is now in. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 8, 2010)
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Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau was a French adventurer who played a leading role in the rise to power of the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam. Born in Brittany in 1769 he drifted east and was enlisted in the mercenary army of Father Pierre Pigneau de Behaine to fight alongside the forces of Prince Nguyen-Phuc Anh. He came to Vietnam with the padre in 1794 and joined in the grand campaign wherein the foreign troops were particularly helpful in naval and artillery roles and it was in such a role that Chaigneau distinguished himself in the naval attack on Thi Nai.
In 1802 the war ended with success for the Nguyen and Prince Anh was crowned as Emperor Gia Long. The new monarch was a man as generous to his friends as he was harsh toward his enemies and Chaigneau was awarded the rank of a mandarin, roughly in the middle of the scholar-gentry hierarchy of Confucian Vietnam. Chaigneau stayed at court to serve Emperor Gia Long and was soon raised to the status of Grand Mandarin with the honor of a 50-man escort. He also married a Vietnamese lady, Ho Thi Hue, from a prominent Catholic Viet family. As he continued his service he took the name Nguyen Van Thang and was made an advisor to the Emperor who sought to utilize his foreign officials in dealing with the Europeans who were feared as much as admired.
Eventually he returned to France and was made the first French consul in Cochinchina, their name for the far south of Vietnam. However, his situation, and those of Europeans in general in Vietnam, changed with the passing of Gia Long and the accession of Emperor Minh Mang. The new monarch favored closer ties with China and the rejection of all ties with Europe. Chaigneau proposed a treaty between France and Vietnam but Minh Mang rejected it. As tension increased between the court in Hue and all foreigners Chaigneau was finally obliged to leave Vietnam for good and return to France where he died in 1832 in Lorient.
Posted by MadMonarchist at 12:39 PM
Will Sihanouk Appear at Khmer Rouge Trials?
Inter Press Service (IPS); By Marwaan Macan-Markar
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39198
RIGHTS-CAMBODIA
(Comments: this article has the merit of raising the important question as to how and why Sihanouk has switched from working with Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970’s and 1980’s, to now supporting Hun Sen and his CPP, not to mention for thanking the Vietnamese for ‘liberating’ Cambodia.
It also provides the logical explanation as to why Sihanouk is now strongly supporting Hun Sen and his CPP. Probably under the advisement of the Vietnamese, Hun Sen must have told Sihanouk that if he does not cooperate with him, Hun Sen would have to send him, at least, to testify, if not to be tried at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal or ECCC.
This is no surprise to me, as I have said before that Sihanouk has a great ability to survive, and he will do anything to remain alive, even at high cost to other people. But, by switching from one extreme position to another, as in this case, Sihanouk may have saved his life, but did Cambodia survive from this mercurial and insane behavior? The answer is a clear NO.
In this context, this article also provides the background for the understanding the mystery behind Sihanouk, his wife and son, King Sihamoni, recent visit to Hanoi, which Sihanouk had hypocritically called as a private visit.
The main reason underlying Sihanouk and his family’s recent visit to Hanoi, was basically to plead on behalf o Hun Sen for his pardon for allowing Sam Rainsy to remove the temporary border markers in Svay Rieng province, a few months ago, which implied a violation of the content of the imposed 1979 treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, which was rendered official by the signing by King Sihamoni, its supplements in 2005.
That treaty basically forbids any Cambodian to criticize Vietnam for whatever reason and allows the Vietnamese free entry to colonize Cambodia (Please, see the article and the picture of Sihanouk and his family paying respect to the Vietnamese leader in Hanoi, last June, posted just below)
Sihanouk is the most destructive among all the bad god-kings that Cambodia had produced. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 3, 2010)
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BANGKOK, Sep 10, 2007 (IPS) - Cambodia’s colourful former king Norodom Sihanouk has emerged as the central figure in the latest controversy to plague the special tribunal established to prosecute the surviving members of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.
And the 85-year-old royal, who has carved a name for himself as a man who relishes the spotlight, has waded into the dispute in his own inimitable way. He chose to reveal his thoughts on the question that has gripped Phnom Penh: whether Sihanouk should or should not be called to appear before the United Nations-backed war crimes trial.
On Aug. 30 he took his first thrust by issuing an unusual invitation to the U.N. officials associated with the tribunal, including the international spokesman for the tribunal, Peter Foster, to visit the palace for a conversation on ‘’the affairs of the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk.’’ The means of communicating the invitation was typical Sihanouk: it was posted on the personal web site that he maintains. The rendezvous in the royal court was set for Sep. 8 and expected to last for three hours, from 9 a.m. till 12 noon.
Sihanouk - who stepped down as the monarch in October 2004 in favour of his son, Norodom Sihamoni - took the liberty on that web posting to reveal how he views the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), as the tribunal is officially called. ‘’After this (meeting) it will no longer be necessary for me to present myself before the U.N.’s ECCC,’’ Sihanouk stated in his invitation. And if the U.N. officials failed to show up, he noted that he ‘’will not accept to see, speak or correspond with the U.N.’s ECCC.’’
As was expected, the U.N. officials did not participate in this royal conversation on the tribunal. ‘’I was not authorised to participate in this meeting, nor were other U.N. officials,’’ Foster said during an interview from Phnom Penh. ‘’We responded by saying that only the judges involved in the trial will be able to determine who will be a witness. The judges will do so based on procedural rules.’’
But like a character from a Shakespearian drama, Sihanouk continued to protest too much. In standing up for his cause, the former monarch ‘’complained that the ECCC wanted him to ‘take an oath to tell the truth, nothing but the truth on the subject of arch criminals’,’’ reported the ‘Phnom Penh Post’ English-language newspaper last Friday. ‘’I do not have to swear an oath after (the one I swore) with Buddha, to debase myself to take an oath in front of the ECCC.’’
Those familiar with Sihanouk’s penchant for grand gestures and a life peppered with drama are hardly surprised by this latest offering. Following his being crowned the monarch of his South-east Asian nation in 1941, at the tender age of 18 years, he has abdicated twice, served as king twice, held the post of prime minister twice and served as president once. His record in the world of the arts and entertainment has been as varied, dabbling as a film-maker, song writer, painter, saxophonist and a crooner of ballads.
What is equally well-known is the link Sihanouk maintained with the Khmer Rouge, responsible for an orgy of death during 1975 to 1979 when it took control of Cambodia after a prolonged battle with a pro-American puppet regime in Phnom Penh. The extreme Maoist group killed close to 1.7 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the country’s population at the time. The victims were executed, died from forced labour or starvation as the Khmer Rouge tried to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.
Sihanouk himself lost family members to the Khmer Rouge and was kept under house arrest by the genocidal regime between 1976 till 1979. Yet against those details are the roles he played in the four years up to the Khmer Rouge triumph in 1975 - urging the Cambodian people to join the Khmer Rouge, in addition to serving as the head of state for the Khmer Rouge in the first year it held power. And when the Khmer Rouge was driven out of power by the invading Vietnamese troops, Sihanouk fled to the forests with the extreme Maoists and took on a new role as the global defender of the Khmer Rouge regime in exile.
It is this phase of Sihanouk’s life that has been brought into focus and raised the possibility of him going before the ECCC. The latter officially began work in July this year after long delays and hurdles placed in its way, including regular challenges posed by the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The push to get Sihanouk appear before the ECCC was triggered by a relatively unknown non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the United States, the Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity (CACJE). In late August, it made a request to authorities in Phnom Penh to strip Sihanouk of his immunity as a former monarch in order to be called before the tribunal.
The Hun Sen administration rose to Sihanouk’s defence by delivering a harsh rebuke. The premier called the request to strip Sihanouk ‘’very barbaric’’ and one that ‘’could have the result of jeopardising the peace and unity’’ of the country.
But human rights groups questioned the motives of the government, arguing that war-ravaged Cambodia’s quest to create a society governed by the rules of law and justice will be undermined if the former monarch is placed above the law and insulated from the ECCC. ‘’This could set a bad precedence, since the ECCC is expected to set new and high standards of justice for Cambodia,’’ says Lao Mong Hay, senior researcher on Cambodia at the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a regional rights lobby.
‘’The request does not mean he has to face trial as a defendant or as an accused, but it is to remove an unconstitutional clause in the constitution and make the former king available if the judges need him to appear,’’ Lao explained during an interview from Hong Kong, where AHRC is based. ‘’This is very important for the trial, since many Cambodians who lost family want to know about the past; how and why the Khmer Rouge pursued their murderous policies.’’
‘’It is a chance for the former king to clear his name if he did nothing wrong,’’ adds Lao. ‘’And he has been on the record in the past saying that he would be willing to face the trial like the former Khmer Rouge leaders.’’
Cambodia: Shame & Pride…!
OU CHAL
DEA of Philosophy, Sorbonne Paris
DESS Informatique Documentaire, Lyon III & ENSSIB
President MKRGV
(Memorial of Khmer Rouge Genocide’s Victims)
(Comments: I am very glad to see that more and more there is a convergence of views among Khmer people, on how Sihanouk has again and again been betraying Cambodia and the Cambodian people. As this well-written and thoughtful article written by Ou Chal, has shown, that Sihanouk only cares about himself, his royal families, and the monarchy. He never had any real respect for the Cambodian people. After all, the word “Kgnom” means “I” or “Me,” literally means “slave” or “servant” in Cambodian language. And it is this word that really what Sihanouk usually and really means when he refers to the Cambodian people.
What is missing in this appeal, is a clear proposal as the Cambodian people to go from here to the end objective which liberation of the Cambodian people from the double jeopardizes, which the enslavement of the Cambodian people by the monarchy and the elimination of the Cambodian people from the face of the earth by the Vietnamese with the help of the monarchy.
Last but not leat, thank you Mr. Ou Chal for taking time to write this important piece of contemporary Cambodian history, hilighting the deadly role of Sihanouk in his murderous shifting alliance by allying himself with the Khmer Rouge, then by supporting the traitor Hun Sen and his mentor and boss, the Vietnamese, that ends up with the slow but certain conquest of Cambodia by the vietnamese imperialists and colonialists.
I hope one day and soon, every honest and sincere Cambodian would organize a conference to discuss a roadmap to freedom for the Cambodian people, everywhere where there is a Cambodian Diaspora.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 29, 2010)
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I have shame:
- Of the 1st Sihanouk’s Monarchy:
o coming to the throne on October 28, 1941, celebrating the Independence of Cambodia (with its surface reduced by 1/3) on November 9, 1953, after having accepted submissively the territorial transfer of Cochin-china (or Kampuchea Krom: 80 000km2 ) by France to Vietnam, on June 4, 1949!, Sihanouk had got a cheek to be made called Father of Independence!. ( I was born on June 5, 1946, the year when Cambodia still owned Cochin-china !) . By duty and love over the Motherland, Khmer people living in Cambodia, overseas or inside Cochin-China have already engaged their legal combat against Vietnam to recover Independence of this lost territory. On June 4, 2010, they have commemorated the 60th anniversary of the loss of Kampuchea Krom. Cochin- China will recover its Autonomy and Independence, and that peacefully, because UN, France and Vietnam have to legally restitute this territory to Cambodia ! Kosovo, newly independent, had more difficult road in its Liberation than Kampuchea Krom. One name has to be recalled in this combat for the Liberation : Thach Ngoc Thach, President of Khmer Kampuchea Krom world Federation.
o after having fought at the side of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot, and then became their 1st Head of State, and generated nearly 3 million victims, Sihanouk again became King 2nd monarchy and then handed the throne over to his son Sihamoni . His unique goal is to keep, by all means, Monarchy and Throne for him and his family. The Khmer people – including their democracy, liberty and justice- does not count for him (3 million victims). Independence of Cambodia, the loss of its territories and the Vietnamese colonization do not worry him anymore. After his abdication, toadies shamelessly honored him by the title of The Great, Divine and Brave King ( Preah Moha Vireak ksatr) ! He still remains free and unpunished in his crime of genocide! The height of absurdity is that this 2nd Monarchy continues to chant its national anthem demanding Gods to save his King!
Currently, thanks to Sihanouk, Vietnam and former Khmer Rouge Pol Pot revolutionary people party continue to control Cambodia . They help Vietnam annex the big portions of Khmer territory and pouring in million of Vietnamese immigrants. This year, the party criminal of genocide renamed Cambodian People Party ( CPP) commemorates the 59th birthday of its creation ( in June 28, 1951, in collusion with Ho Chi Minh, already named as the late Asian neocolonialist leader by free and independent Cambodians )! Under the rule of the totalitarian CPP puppet of Vietnam, Cambodia will inevitably experience a 2nd national catastrophe.
- Of the 2nd Khmer rouge Sihanouk-Hun SEN ‘s Monarchy:
- Although the Constitution stipulates the multi-party as system of government, dictator Hun SEN and his clan run Cambodia like their private property , and consider CPP as single party holding all arbitrary powers , over Cambodia and its people. Democracy cannot survive in this state, due to all public institutions so-called independent and neutral are controlled by CPP and Hun Sen (army, police, military police, tribunal, anti-corruption authority, National Council for Elections, civil service…).Until now, he has arrived to maintain in power and serve Vietnam, by using all means : coup d’Etat (5-6 July,1997) , successive electoral frauds, using all state institutions for the benefit of CPP……He’s already targeting 2013 legislative elections victory at all costs! As soldier and then commandant in Pol Pot regime , Hun Sen has participated to build and consolidate this regime for 35 years long. He couldn’t become a credible promoter for Cambodian Democracy . Anyway, he will not have it! A fundamental question is raising : under this Vietnam’s puppet institutional base, should political opposition take part in coming elections that only will be used to consolidate Vietnamese hold over Cambodia?.!
- By his role of Vietnam’s puppet, Hun Sen incarnates a dictator both like communist Stalin and like capitalist Pinochet. Khmer and foreign mafia find in him the protector having defended them, allowed them to plunder richness of Cambodia and making them gain money without respecting the rights and laws of the country. By his communist behavior, Hun Sen have eliminated or ousted nationalist and democrat politicians from his road in order to serve with impunity the Vietnam interests and those of his political and familial clans.
- Accepting submissively the territorial annexation of Cambodia by Vietnam, flouting the October 23, 1991 Paris Agreement , scorning the will of Cambodian people asserting country’s territorial integrity, the marionette Hun SEN threatens, in advance, Khmer resistant to manufacture them coffins. Let us recall that Hun Sen and his CPP have arrived to cede territories to Vietnam by the 1979, 82, 83, 85 treaties and the treaty of October 10,11,12, 2005 added to the treaty 1985.While clinging to the throne and the power, Sihanouk, Hun SEN, Chea Sim and Heng Samrin are already considered , during their lifetime, by free and independent Khmer people , as traitors of the nation! Why these traitors did not give people freedom to liberate Cambodia from the Vietnam’s clutches, just by abiding to Oct.23, 1991 Paris Agreement ?
- By toadying to the Monarchy, puppet khmer state decrees days of holidays to celebrate the birthdays of Sihanouk, his wife Monique and his son the king Sihamoni ! And the people have to worship three new Great CPP’s Sdachs : Hun Sen, Chea Sim et Heng Samrin, and without forgetting to venerate Chumteav Bandith Bun Rany Hun Sen… That makes me fell nauseous! I hate this 2nd monarchy, because it is making this Kingdom loss its territories to Vietnam. Personally, I don’t appreciate the King Sihamoni, due to his weakness in protecting his Kingdom’s Independence, and not assuming his role of guarantee of Cambodians’ justice, democracy and liberty. I am sick of Hun Sen, a former Khmer rouge Pol Pot soldier becoming leader and Prime minister of Cambodia since 1979, by force, frauds and thanks to Vietnam that obliges him to do by all means to legally cede the Cambodian territories to Vietnam. If he does not dare lift his finger against Vietnamese imperialism, why does not he leave courageous, capable and competent Cambodians fulfill this duty in his place? He’s realy the dictator and traitor to the Khmer nation! In this specific case, democracy alone could really help the nation to change policy. Because, only international settlement can bring Cambodia Integrity and Independence solution. Hun Sen, Chéa Sim and Héng Samrin couldn’t militarily recuperate Independence of Cambodia and Khmer territories lost to Vietnam and Thailand, even though by adding ten gold stars to their titles of general. So. CPP and its three chiefs turned out to be harmful and useless for the Cambodia future. Perhaps many Cambodians have had right to believe in uselessness of participating in successive elections in Cambodia by political opposition parties. All have already been installed and settled by Hun Sen and Vietnam to obtain overwhelming final victory. Even if with 50% +1 of seats in the National Assembly, CPP could do legally it would like. Because, by miscalculation, Sam Rainsy party had voted this condition in the recent Constitutional reform.
- In some democracies, the law limits up to two the number of the country President’s mandates. In the other, thanks to good functioning of democracy (with free and fair elections), people could vote as sanction against outgoing president. That’s the double guaranty for the good functioning of the democracy. The fallen president, nonetheless still continues to keep respect from people as former President. In France, people could vote for socialist Mitterrand in a previous mandate and do for non communist Chirac in the next one. Is Hun Sen capable to understand this functioning of democracy, although he had been a former Pol Pot Khmer rouge soldier?
o Celebrating January 7th, date of invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, as the day of their victory, is only used to make forget the Vietnamese aim of Cambodia annexation. The free Cambodians rather consider October 23th as freedom and national sovereignty day recognized by UN ( the Paris Agreement of October 23, 1991, legal base of all social, political, democratic and frontier settlement with the neighbors, signed by 19 participating countries including Vietnam, requires the respect and the re-covering of the Khmer territorial integrity flouted by Vietnam after its invasion of January 7, 1979). So, to recover independence of Cambodia, without further ado,the people have to rebel against Sihanouk, Hun Sen and Vietnamese leaders…by abiding to the Paris Agreement of October 23, 1991. Otherwise, it will be too late! The fight against Vietnam to liberate Cambodia don’t mean Cambodian are racist, terrorists hating Vietnamese! Cambodian and Vietnamese must live freely, independently, respectfully of mutual interests and in harmony as neighbors.
- Judging and condemning Sam Rainsy, the leader of the SRP party , for 2 years of prison , with charge of removal out provisional wooden post marking fraudulently future limit of Cambodia -Vietnam border. And that, because Cambodia is marionette of Vietnam, and the Khmer court is not independent. Sam Rainsy, in his name of lawmaker and leader of a principal opposition party, has well carried out his duty, like many other Cambodians do , to recover Cambodia’s Independence from Vietnam.
- Judging and condemning for about $ 4000 of fines the Sam Rainsy party lawmaker Mu Sochua, with charge of defamation against Hun SEN ( and not the contrary !). And that, because the Khmer court is not independent. At the beginning, there was the verbal outrage of the PM Hun Sen at TV prompting the sue from the lawyer Mu Sochua. From this Court, without money and power, people has no hope to receive justice. Mu Sochua should not to pay fines nor to go in prison ! To put an end to this injustice, people have to rebel against the injustice of tribunal and Hun Sen! Mu Sochua , in her name of lawmaker of a principal opposition party, has well carried out her duty , like many other Cambodians , to claim Independence of Khmer judiciary system.
- Encouraging, protecting and decriminalizing the corrupted leaders , and distributing a profusion of antisocial , scorning and haughty titles of Ek Oudom, Oudom Seney,Oknha, Lok Chum Teav, Samdech, Bandith( honorary title of doctorates without attending university ), they try to acquire suspicious honorary titles. They have no more honors in morality. ! It doesn’t surprise me that most Cambodians, by hatred reaction, call them by insulting terms ever used in our Khmer language: A…MI…in stead of Ek Oudom and Lok Chum Teav !
o Threatening and luring members away from their political opposition parties with a blow of dollars to gain voices in elections and to cling to the power
o Where politicians , of the different sides, shamelessly change their political parties, just to have official positions which allow them to take part in the feasts of the corruption and to fill dollars in their pockets!.
o In all institutions ( Government, National Assembly, Senate, Army, Police, Gendarmerie, tribunal,Administration, civil servants…),they build groups of A Mey A Thong (sycophants) composed of Ek Oudom, Oudom Seney, Bandith ( without attending university), Samdech, Lok Chumteav... without soul and conscience, deaf and blind to the people’s aspirations. And they haughtily take the titles of traitors to their nation! They make their people ashamed in the eyes of the international community! The day the liberation wind is turning up, these Amey Athong will return their coats and are getting more democratic, more independent, and even more ultra nationalist than all we are ! In the ruling party, I look at and listen with incomprehension and disgust to Khieu Kanharith, Tith Sothéa, Phay Sithan, Khieu Sopheak, Chém Yeap….defending Hun Sen, CPP, justifying even treason, corruption, oppression, violence! . If Cambodia have today lost Independence, Justice, Liberty, Democracy, it’s also because of them!. Three million of Pol Pot ‘s regime victims were not only the crime from a dozen of Khmer rouge leaders. They were the result of zealous and collective execution by thousands of thousands Khmer rouge grassroots .
In short:
o In domestic policy, our leaders are dictators against their people. In foreign policy, they are idiots and imbeciles voluntarily persist to remain traitors to their nation and slaves of the Vietnam! History repeats itself again in Cambodia : by choosing China and Vietnam, with his unique political party of Sangkum , Sihanouk sealed the loss of Cochin- China for the benefit of Vietnam, and signed the genocide of millions of Khmers. Today, with Hun Sen, former Khmer rouge soldier triply dupe of Pol Pot, Chinese and Vietnamese communism, and very thirsty of power, Cambodia is again loosing portions of its territory for the benefit of Vietnam which every days pours its immigrants like torrential rains in Cambodia in order to colonize this country. The two dictators, Sihanouk and Hun Sen win power. Vietnam expands its territories. Cambodia is dwindling away. And under the Hun Sen’s dictatorship, Cambodians live under injustice, without freedom of speed and demonstration , and that since 35 years long : that’s 2/3 of the Cambodian’s life expectancy ! Naturally, such a regime is to be thrown. Change of country’s leaders is not bad in itself: it’s even the expression of the Democracy. It’s rather good for people. What’s the tragedy is those ousted leaders , like Sihanouk…, commit crimes out of revenge against their people, following their legal destitution!
o The Kingdom’s motto ( Nation, Religion , King) remains useless. Firstly, its leaders do not care of national Integrity and Independence. Secondly : Cambodian leaders politicize the Buddhist religion. There are different branches of Buddhism. Buddhism pro-CPP and pro-Vietnam represented by the monk Tep Vong. Buddhism pro-monarchy has the monk Bou Kry as its chief nominated by Sihanouk. Another insignificant branch represents the traditional Khmer Buddhism. In short, by building many more temples and pagodas, Khmer population does not find more jobs. Politician leaders have their interests in thriving Buddhism and expect gaining more voices in elections. Thirdly, the King cannot assume his role Constitution assigns to him.
o 35 years after the genocide, the Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists leaders have continued to consider Khmer people as imbecile, by persisting in tracing fraudulently borders for the profit of Vietnam. So,leaders of the two countries maintain there a bomb with delayed-action: the war of liberation of Cambodia and Cochin-china will be necessary and obligatory. It will surely set ablaze Indo-China! And nobody will be able to prevent it! The Khmer People Liberation for Independence, Democracy and Justice must not be considered internationally as terrorism!.
o 35 years after the genocide, the Cambodian Diaspora still have no right to vote in principal elections, abroad in Cambodia embassies. These diplomatic places are like the private property serving the interests of the men and women of CPP and not those of the Khmer people. And, inside Cambodia, Vietnamese people have been offered their identity cards to vote and help Hun Sen overwhelmingly win all elections! The practice of this democracy has been distorted by the communism and the Vietnamese immigrants.
o At the national level, the government cannot reduce poverty by charity. It could be structurally resolved by the social policy of redistribution of the country richness to the social categories who are in need. It’s their rights. By receiving a krama and some kilograms of rice from the government, the poor cannot become richer! Just a little relief from hunger! Therefore, the government should not mix charity with politics. Otherwise, it would be of the demagogy following in Sihanouk’s footsteps! Currently, CPP can spread interested and politicized charity thanks to its generalized corruption. And they use all institutions (Boy-scout, Cambodia Red Cross, pagodas, army, government, parliaments, tribunal, police, gendarmerie, administration… ) for the political purposes! What’s very spectacular in this society is the abyssal and unimaginable gap between the rich and the poor. Furthermore, the rich are those having the power or joining their force with men in power. The poor have to sale off their daughters to provide for their families. Their poor sons, without education and unemployed have recourse to delinquency to survive.
o Pol. Pot, Sihanouk and Hun SEN (accomplices of the genocide) use the same strategy of communist propaganda , by praising their hyper perspicacity, hyper intelligence and hyper infallibility toward the people , just to maintain themselves indefinitely in the power. But, history is there to refresh theirs memories: Pol. Pot was swept out after 3 years 8 months and 20 days of dictatorship. Sihanouk was deposed on March 18, 1970. Hun SEN, although he’s trying at all costs to cling to the power until his 90 years old, by fear of being caught, sued and judged for his various crimes once ousted from the power, he isn’t either an immortal leader. If he does not accept to abandon the power by the will of the people, he will inevitably be taken out by force. And the personal, familial catastrophe will be enormous!. Building roads, schools, and renaming them after their names: did they do that to redeem themselves from bad conscience of corruption, association with bad doers and of spoliations of the country’s richness? Anti- corruption Authority is under supervision of Hun Sen and Sok An, the two most corrupted in the country. And, it is running by Om YenTieng, the Hun Sen protected. The CPP’s clique really consider Cambodian people as imbecile!.
o For unity, Khmer nation (including Khmer opposition politicians) have four fundamental arguments: Cambodia’s Independence, Justice, Liberty and Democracy. And in its sacred fighting, the nation has three enemies in face : Vietnam, CPP’s communism and Monarchy that represent beyond all doubt the cancer of Khmer nation. Only Oct. 23 , 1991 UN-Paris Agreement can protect this Nation !.
v I am proud:
- Cambodians all azimuths, as well inside as outside, openly denounce, with contempt but with honesty, without fear or complacency , the treason policy and the actions of Sihanouk, Hun SEN and those accomplices( or A Mey A Thong ) in the Government or in the Cambodia border Authority, the functioning of democracy, the dictatorship of the power, the injustice , the non- respect of the Human rights and the generalized corruption… They all represent Khmer national conscience of Independence, Justice, Liberty and Democracy. what’ s precious they win would simply be Independence of Cambodia, Justice, Liberty and Democracy for Cambodians ! Cheers and many thanks to these valorous liberators!
v And I pay homage:
- to radios( KPradio,VOKK, RFA,Beehive radio…), Khmer Net surfers and foreigners who criticize, vilify and even insult the policy of slave, treason, dictatorship and corruption of the Hun SEN government…
- to all political parties worthy of democratic opposition ( SRP,HRP… )
- to the cartoonist, poets, journalists, politicians, unionists, NGOs (Sacravatoon, Ly Deap,Uon Sim, Ung Bun Heang, Khem Khieu, Yim Gueh Sê, Hin Sithan, Ung Phiny, Sek Serey, Sam Vichéa, Rong Chhun, Chea Mony,Kul Panha,Mam Sonando,Meach Sovannara, Lim Kim Ya, Ung Thavary, Sean Peng Sê, Suon Serey Ratha,Kulen Monorom, Rithy Komar, Sam Rainsy, Kem Sokha, Mu Sochuo, CBC, Global Witness,LICADHO, COMFREL, CHRAC,ADHOC,CACJE, Nokoreach, Khmer M' chas Srok...), daring denounce betrayal, injustice, dictatorship, slavery and corruption... Your generation, unlike the former, has the nerve to denounce the dictatorship of Khmer leaders, during their lifetime. By this courage, you will give hope of Independence and produce a potential Cambodia’s Lech Valesa amid you!...It’s the way number of European and Asian people,in the past or recently, have released their homelands: Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ukraine, Belarus, Eastern Timor,…Thanks to all of you and by the people power, one day, Cambodia and Cochin-China will be free and independent!.
And I wish that:
- Free, independent and democratic Cambodians use between them ,the friendly and egalitarian terms of Lok, Lok Srey (Mister, Madam), more responsible and respectful of human dignity. Let’s the treacherous Khmer rouge, corrupted, megalomaniac or criminal leaders use between them the terms of Ek Oudom, Lok Chumteav, Ok Nha or Samdech…. , these scorning and haughty words, exhibiting vanity and disrespect against human dignity. These terms are put in circulation, with profusion, by the 2nd Monarchy Sihanouk-Hunsen.
- Cambodia will again become the 2nd Republic, because it will be more capable to promote Liberty, Democracy , Justice, and particularly assert our recent lost territories due to the signature of the additive treaties of 2005 and Cochin-china (or Kampuchea Krom: given up by France to Vietnam, on June 4, 1949, under the 1st Monarchy of Sihanouk). Sihanouk and Hun Sen did not help Khmer nation recover Independence and Sovereignty from Vietnam, but rather obstruct , by all means from doing that. Since its Independence on November 9, 1953, the Khmer nation has always been deceived by Sihanouk, Mao Tse Tung, Chou En Lay,Ho Chi Minh, China, Vietnam and Khmer rouge Pol Pot and Hun Sen. It’s time for this nation to liberate itself from the triple dictatorship formed by Sihanouk’s Monarchy, Khmer rouge Hun Sen’s CPP and Vietnam. God helps those who help themselves!.
- celebrating October 23th as Freedom and National Sovereignty Day recognized by UN ( the Paris Agreement of October 23, 1991, legal base of all political, social, democratic and frontier settlement with the neighbors, signed by 19 participating countries including Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, requiring the respect and the re-covering of Khmer territorial Integrity flouted by Vietnam after its invasion of January 7, 1979).
- Cambodians! Wake up wherever you are, with your own intelligence and by all means, for Justice, Liberty, Democracy, Human rights and Independence of Cambodia and Cochin-china . And every year , on April 17th, - instead of celebrating victory of such a political party-, commemorate respectfully nearly 3 millions of Khmer rouge genocide’s victims , by the midday siren followed by 2 minutes of silence, and by the candlelight and burning incense stick the night, in order to promote Peace, Democracy, Justice and Respect of the Human rights!.
- 35 years after the genocide, to keep venerating and supporting Sihanouk, Hun Sen, Chéa Sim, Héng Samrin through their criminal party renamed CPP inherited from Pol Pot , without Democracy, Liberty, Independence, under Vietnamese colonization : Enough is enough!
Making justice relevant for all Cambodians
The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 25 August 2010 15:00 Ou Virak
(Comments: John Kerry is a well-known supporter of Vietnam and their friends such as Hun Sen and his CPP. It was John Kerry who diluted the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) by allowing Hun Sen to take over the direction of the KRT and by limiting the power of the United Nations role in this tribunal.
Now, as expected, Kerry is praising the result of the KRT, saying that the tribunal, which is under Hun Sen’s total control and in a very politicized judicial system “the potential of the Khmer Rouge by Tribunal demonstrating the virtues of judicial independence, fairness and due process of law. ”
Credit must be given to Ou Virak, president of Cambodian Centre for Human Rights for refuting John Kerry’s one-sided and biased assessment of the results of the KRT, when he reminded the public that;
“Cambodia’s justice system was rebuilt in the 1980s based on the communist model of its Vietnamese patrons. As in other communist states, courts were established as legal institutions subservient to the ruling party, with no recognition of the concept of an independent judiciary or the separation of powers. Despite the introduction of a new Constitution in 1993, guaranteeing an independent and impartial judiciary, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has been reluctant to abandon its one-party-state ideology and respect the Constitution. The courts remain a political tool. They are all too often used to silence criticism of the government by the media, opposition politicians and ordinary citizens. It is in this context that we must consider the potential legacy of the KRT.”
Along with Hilary Clinton and her Husband Bill Clinton, John Kerry is the most ardent defender of the dictatorship of Vietnam and Hun Sen and his CPP. Cambodian-Americans should never forget this aspect of Kerry’s behaviour and his total disrespect for the dignity and real justice for the Cambodian people. One wonders if John Kerry would recommend such justice system that he advocates for Cambodia, for the United States.
As Ou Virak has done, Cambodian-Americans, especially those living in Massachusetts, should send a letter to John Kerry to remind him that Hun Sen is not a freedom-lover nor a defender of human rights and justice, and he is a ruthless dictator and a killer. As so many times before, Cambodians can remain free only if we start to stand up and to defend our own freedom and dignity, and not to expect from foreigners to do this job for them.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 27, 2010. )
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In a recent opinion piece published in The Phnom Penh Post, United States Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry noted the potential of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal to leave a lasting legacy “by demonstrating the virtues of judicial independence, fairness and due process of law” (“More justice for Cambodians”, August 16). The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights is a strong advocate for maximising the KRT’s positive impact on Cambodia’s wider justice system. In this regard, Senator Kerry touched on an important point: If the KRT’s positive impact is to be maximised, along with an increase in the judiciary’s ability to supply justice, there must be an increase in Cambodians’ demand for justice.
Cambodia’s justice system was rebuilt in the 1980s based on the communist model of its Vietnamese patrons. As in other communist states, courts were established as legal institutions subservient to the ruling party, with no recognition of the concept of an independent judiciary or the separation of powers. Despite the introduction of a new Constitution in 1993, guaranteeing an independent and impartial judiciary, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has been reluctant to abandon its one-party-state ideology and respect the Constitution. The courts remain a political tool. They are all too often used to silence criticism of the government by the media, opposition politicians and ordinary citizens. It is in this context that we must consider the potential legacy of the KRT.
Senator Kerry posited that “the more Cambodians witness a higher standard of justice, the more they will be inclined to demand it in their own judicial system”. Without strong demand for an independent and impartial legal system from a broad section of society, efforts to develop the knowledge, capacity and resources of the judiciary are unlikely to benefit ordinary citizens. One could argue that such efforts will contribute to demand for change from within the judiciary and a greater pride in work, and will make it harder for wrongs to go unnoticed. On the other hand, such capacity building might be counterproductive to the cause of human rights, improving the sophistication of an institution used to persecute those perceived as opponents of Cambodia’s political and business elite and sharpening a tool of oppression.
The USAID-funded Programme on Rights and Justice has noted: “Despite widespread public dissatisfaction with Cambodia’s legal system, judicial reform has yet to move large constituencies of ordinary citizens or business people to mobilise and take corrective action.” It is essential to expand constituencies for legal and judicial reform beyond Phnom Penh-based NGOs, to include a broad cross-section of society. In order to encourage and empower such demand, the positive demonstration effect of the KRT must be maximised. This can only happen if it is viewed as a credible, independent institution and, further, if it implements legacy initiatives focused on sending clear messages to the Cambodian people about what real justice looks like. The KRT is not a magic cure. But it does have the potential to influence the demand for reform; focusing on supply alone could be a very big mistake.
Ou Virak, President
Cambodian Centre for Human Rights
Khmer Krom petition King
Wednesday, 25 August 2010 15:01 Meas Sokchea
(Comments: It is clear from this article that the Hun Sen’s government and his CPP is serving Vietnam interests and not those of Cambodia. Hun Sen has been closing his yes to Vietnam continued gross abuses of human rights including physical elimination of those Khmer Krom who are trying to defend their very existence as a minority living in their ancestral land, in Kampuchea Krom, or Cochinchina in the Mekong Delta,, physically, culturally, and economically.
It is normal that Hun Sen would support the Vietnamese government in their persecution of the Khmer Krom people. After all he was put in power by the Vietnamese government, when they invaded Cambodia in 1978.
But what is not normal and even disgusting, is the fact that the new and the old kings, never utter one word in the defence of the Khmer Krom people. The father and his royal son are now totally under Hun Sen thus the Vietnamese control. It is in this context, that Sihanouk, Queen Monique, and their son. King Sihanouk had all gone to pay tribute and respect to their suzerain (the Vietnamese leaders) and to beg for pardon for Hun Sen for allowing Sam Rainsy to remove the border markers in Svay Rieng province a few months ago (See the Photo of Sihanouk Kowtowing the Vietnamese leaders).
It is easier to understand why Hun Sen would allow Vietnam to abuse the human rights of the Khmer Krom; but, it is incomprehensible for Hun Sen not to allow the Khmer Krom people to protest Vietnam’s interferences in Cambodian sovereignty. That is why Cambodia is called the country of the absurd. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 27, 2010)
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A LEADING Khmer Krom advocacy group has appealed to King Norodom Sihamoni to raise issues related to the treatment of Vietnam’s ethnic Khmer community when the Vietnamese president visits Cambodia later this week.
In a statement yesterday, Thach Setha, executive director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community, said that Khmer Krom have repeatedly been arrested because Vietnamese authorities did not allow freedom of expression and religion for the Khmer minority, which resides in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region.
The statement requests that King Sihamoni discuss the “violation of human rights” when he meets with Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet, who is scheduled to arrive in Phnom Penh tomorrow.
“Please, government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, release all Khmer people arrested because of land protests and expression,” the statement says. “Please allow Khmer people in Kampuchea Krom to study Khmer literature, respect its customs freely and avoid threats.”
In a separate statement released Monday, Thach Setha slammed Vietnamese authorities for arresting former monk chief Tach Sophoan, who is accused of “serving the actions of the Khmer Krom” in opposition to the Vietnamese government.
The statement says authorities have barred the monk’s family from visiting since his arrest, and that no one knows where he is being held.
“The KKKC would like to call for Vietnamese authorities to free Tach Sophoan,” the statement says. “We would like to appeal to the Royal Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia and both national and international organisations to legally intervene.”
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said people living abroad must respect the laws of the country they reside in.
“This means that people who live in Vietnam must respect Vietnamese law,” he said.
He did not comment on either statement, saying Cambodia “would not interfere” in Vietnam’s internal affairs.
A Picture is worth a thousand words
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2010/06/sihanouks-vietnam-visit-disappoints.html
Sihanouk, along with his wife Monique, and his son the current king, Sihamoni (The vassals) recently visited Hanoi (June 2010), to pay tribute to and to reassure the Vietnamese leader (Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet, the suzerain) that Hun Sen is still Hanoi’s servant, and Sihanouk is still Hun Sen’s servant. The Vietnamese trbutary system in now implanted on solid ground in Cambodia. Notice, how respectful Sihanouk (Kowtow) is toward the Vietnamese leader. Is he as respectful toward the Cambodian people? The answer is, NO!
When will Sihanouk stop betraying Cambodia and its people? When will the Cambodian people have enough courage to start to let the ex-king and traitor know that he had done enough harm to Cambodia and its people, and should disappear from the political scene as soon as possible, in order to allow the Cambodian people to have a better chance to survive the Vietnamese onslaught.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 26, 2010
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Vietnam president praises Cambodia cooperation: state TV
AFP Asian Edition
Jun 22, 2010 12:04 EDT
http://www.royalty.nu/news/10/06/MocCamb.html
Vietnam's president praised cooperation with neighbouring Cambodia Tuesday during a private visit by former king Norodom Sihanouk and members of his royal family, state television reported.
Sihanouk arrived in the Vietnamese capital with his wife and his son, King Norodom Sihamoni, for a four-day stay.
The ex-monarch is sometimes known as the "king-father" of Cambodia, where anti-Vietnamese sentiment is rife, fuelled by resentment at Vietnam's expansion over centuries and the perception that Cambodia is losing territory.
But communist Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet said the visit showed relations between the two are close and important, state television said.
Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as their fellow neighbour Laos, are determined to maintain solidarity, Triet added.
According to the report, Sihanouk thanked Vietnam for its support.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, overthrew the murderous Khmer Rouge regime the following year, and occupied the country for 10 years.
"Being retired and no longer doing politics nor diplomacy, my journey and trip to the glorious Socialist Republic of Vietnam will have a strictly private character," Sihanouk said in a statement dated June 14.
He was to meet other current and retired leaders of Vietnam, and attend a performance at Hanoi's Opera House, a Vietnamese source said.
Sihanouk abruptly quit the throne in October 2004 in favour of his son, citing old age and health problems. He remains a prominent figure in Cambodia and often uses messages on his website to comment on matters of state.
Cambodia and Vietnam share a 1,270-kilometre (790-mile) border, which has remained vague since French colonial times, but in 2005 they signed a border accord that has helped calm tensions after decades of territorial disputes.
Vietnamese businesses are also investing in Cambodia.
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A historical record on How the Cambodian Royal Family betrayed the Cambodian People
Please, click this link to read an article written by a Vietnamese scholar david Lan Pham, on how the Cambodian royal family had betrayed the cambodian people, when Chhey Chetha II married a Vietnamese ptincess, and had ceded Prey Nokor (Saigon) to his new wife's father - the Vietnamese Emperor - to be used as customs station which led to the beginning of the conquest of Kampuchea Krom. Before the conquest of kampuchea Krom, Vietnam had also used sex to conquer and totally destroyed Champa.
The most remarkable aspect of "Nam Tien," as described in this article, is the fact that this strategy was conceived as a way to escape death of the Vienamese nation in the hands of the Chinese. In order to escape this death threat, Vietnmese leaders had fought each other - the Trinh lords of the North against the Nguyen lords of the South, who triumphed - after more than 200 years of civil war, which allowed the latter to reshape the Chinese tributary system adopted by the Trinh lords, to make it a more lethal one for those neighbouring countries, namely, Cambodia and Champa; and to rebuild a new and more capable and honest administration supported by a high quality of its civilian and military leaders, based on scholarship, heorism (A general committed suicide because he felt he did not defend the newly acquired land that was under his responsibility) and honor, while incentives including military protection, were given to those Vietnamese convicts and former soldiers who would accept to venture into the newly conquered land of the Cham and the Khmer People. Finally, the intellectual vigor of the Vietnnamese people was witnessed by the numerous new religions adopted and created by the Vietnamese, such as; Coa Daism, Hoa Hao, Catholicism, Protestantism. While the vast majority ot Cambodians remains stuck with Therevada Buddhism since the 12th century. Theravada Buddhism is the perfect way for escape for most Cambodians who have extremely been oppressed by the monarchy since the founding of Angkor in 802 by Jayavarman II.
Unlike Vietnam, Cambodia had never allowed anybody other than the kings and their family members to have any opinion or ideas in order to move the country forward and not backward. The Cambodian kings had never allowed the pursuit of scholarship by the common people, nor did they look for it to move the country forward. Because, scholarship from any commoner would be considered as a competition with the king's power. This in turn makes Cambodia going backward.
In Cambodia, the status-quo and standstill attitude is the norm rather than the exception. No wonder, Cambodia is moving backward and not froward. Unless this whole attitude is changed there is little chance that cambodia can survive the Vietnamese formidable and deadly "Nam Tien." Naranhkri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 30, 2010
A brief history of Cochinchina.docx
Website to publish assets of senior government officials
The Phnom Penh Post: Tuesday, 24 August 2010 15:01 Vong Sokheng and James O’Toole
(Comments: this article sounds rather good for a country like Cambodia, better known as “the country of the absurd.” It is unreal to read that Hun Sen and his CPP would allow such publication of the information of his extended family’s wealth, in a government web site, to expose corruption of government officials who are mostly Hun Sen extended family members and their friends.
On this unlikelihood of success of this grandiose project as announced by Hun Sen and his CPP, I am in total agreement with SRP National Assembly member, Son Chhay’s sarcastic reaction to this proposal, when he observed that:
“’We just laughed our heads off when we saw the article on the declaration of assets,’ he said. ‘Since these people have been appointed by the Prime Minister, it will be easy for them to search for their opponents.’”
I would say that to all of us who are aware of the total corruption of Hun Sen and his CPP, it is surrealistic to hear such a proposal coming from Hun Sen and his corrupt CPP. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 24, 2010)
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THE government’s Anticorruption Unit plans to set up a website to publicise the asset declarations of government officials and other materials related to the Kingdom’s anti-graft strategy, the body’s chairman said yesterday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a symposium hosted in part by anti-graft group Transparency International, ACU head Om Yentieng said the website would help to publicise the government’s fight against corruption.
“We need to find a way to release information to the public, and our website is a bridge to connect with the public and answer questions,” Om Yentieng said. He said he could not afford to wait for donors to help prepare the website, and would instead start one “by myself”.
“I will be spending only a few hundred dollars,” Om Yentieng said. “I am not going to die if I lose support from donors, but I will die if my people are not confident in my work.”
Ran Liao, Tranparency International’s senior programme coordinator for East and Southeast Asia, called the website proposal “encouraging”, though he said that asset declarations needed to analysed to ensure their accuracy.
“In many countries, as a first step, they have an act which encourages government officials to declare their assets and other things, but there’s no monitoring system included,” Liao said.
Transparency International, he said, plans to set up an office in Phnom Penh “soon” to help work more on this issue.
Asset declarations will be compulsory for senior officials under the new Law on Anticorruption, and Om Yentieng said yesterday that the ACU would have the power to seize assets that were not accounted for.
“If you have two houses in your asset declaration during your two-year term, and in the next term you have three or four houses, you will need to explain the financial sources,” he said.
Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay said he doubted that this provision would be judiciously enforced by anti-graft officials.
“We just laughed our heads off when we saw the article on the declaration of assets,” he said. “Since these people have been appointed by the Prime Minister, it will be easy for them to search for their opponents.”
Son Chhay allowed, however, that the declaration requirement could be effective if government officials give a full and public accounting of their assets. “We’ve heard so much about how much they earn,” he said. “Everybody really wants to know.”
US and Cambodia in controversial lockstep
By Clifford McCoy
Asia times; Jul 31, 2010
(Comments: This article pointed out the fact that Cambodians cannot count on anybody but themselves to remain free.
With Bill Gates at the defense Department (a left over from the Bush Administration) and Hilary Clinton at the State Department (From her husband Bill Clinton pro-Vietnam policy), the Obama administration as during the time of the Bush Administration, continues to use Vietnam as the countervailing force to try to stop China from rising in Asia and in the world, which is an impossible and Totally irrational policy. It proves once more that Obama is not in control of the whole world affairs situation.
There is something wrong in this policy, and a highly hypocritical foreign of the Obama Administration. It is normal that the United States should think of their interests first. But, it is totally counter-productive for the United States to try to stop China from rising to be a world power by using Vietnam.
Vietnam along with the United States cannot stop China rising power. This irrational policy contradicts the whole Obama’s slogan during his presidential campaign in 2008, trumpeting “Yes, Can change.” In fact, there is no change at all in Obama’s foreign policy in Asia or in the Middle East. For this major mistake, Obama will be, a one-term president.
Last but not least, turning now to the Cambodian side; as long as the Cambodian people are compromising on the moral qualities that a good leader must have, such as; courage, honesty, patience, and dignity (For ore information on what the moral characteristics that a good leader must have, please, go to this link In Search of Heroes in the Land of the Absurd,) Cambodia will have nowhere to go but down and down.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 21, 2010)
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BANGKOK – Cambodia’s first-ever multinational military exercise is part and parcel of intensifying competition between the United States and China for regional influence.
The recently completed US-Cambodia military drills, known as “Angkor Sentinel 10”, involved 1,200 soldiers from 23 countries and were ostensibly part of Washington’s Global Peace Operations Initiative, a program run jointly by the US Department of Defense and State Department to help train global peacekeepers against insurgency, terrorism, crime and ethnic conflict.
The largest contingents of troops in the exercise were from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) and the US Army
Pacific, even as it was billed as a multilateral peacekeeping operation.
Warming bilateral relations come as the Barack Obama administration puts new policy emphasis on Asia and moves to compete with, if not contain, China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia. Cambodia, as well as Laos and Myanmar, are viewed by many observers as already firmly in China’s orbit. China’s influence in Cambodia has grown considerably in the past decade. While not the largest official donor to the country, its aid projects and investments are strongly publicized and come without demands for improved human rights, better governance or less corruption.
The US has provided over US$4.5 million worth of military equipment and training to the Cambodian military since 2006, and this was the first time the two sides jointly put the equipment to use. Recent statements by US officials highlighted the cooperation between Cambodia and US forces.
At the May 3 opening of the now-completed, US Defense Department-funded Peacekeeping Training Center, US charge d’affaires Theodore Allegra said the US remained ‘’committed to enhancing military relations with Cambodia in the areas of defense reform and professionalization, border and maritime security, counter-terrorism, civil-military operations and de-mining.”
The $1.8 million training center was “evidence of the US government’s commitment to enhancing partner capacity with Cambodia”, he said.
At the July 12 opening ceremony of the military operations, US ambassador to Cambodia Carol Rodley said Washington was committed to enhancing its military relationship with Phnom Penh and called Angkor Sentinel a “unique opportunity” to expand the friendship between the two countries.
The drills, which also included participants from France, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, India, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mongolia and the United Kingdom, notably coincided with the 60th anniversary of US-Cambodia relations.
The program for the exercises consisted of two main components: a multilateral UN force headquarters computer-simulated command post exercise held in Phnom Penh and a two-week field training exercise at the RCAF’s ACO Tank Command headquarters in Kompong Speu province 50 kilometers west of the capital.
However, the exercises did not sit well with some military officers in Thailand, the US’s erstwhile security partner in the region. Thailand plays host annually to the region’s largest US-led joint military exercise, Cobra Gold. Some Thai officers have expressed dismay that the US is showing increased strategic interest in a country that has emerged as one of its biggest security threats in light of recent border disputes and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s perceived meddling in Thai domestic politics.
United States Under Secretary of State William Burns discounted this view in a July 16 press conference in Bangkok. “We don’t see that as in any way contradicting or in conflict with our commitment to working with the Thai military on regional security or peacekeeping operations,” he said.
Guns for hire
Cambodia has come a long way since being the recipient of one of the United Nations’ largest peacekeeping operations from 1991-1993. After decades of debilitating civil war, the country has in recent years sent peacekeepers, primarily de-mining experts, to Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic and Lebanon.
Human-rights activists argue that while Cambodia may no longer need peacekeepers itself, its population is still in need of protection from its own armed forces, including units involved in the recent joint exercises.
In a July 8 report, Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based rights lobby, alleged that many RCAF units selected to participate in the joint exercises had abysmal rights records. HRW said that by allowing the controversial units to participate in the drills, the US had undermined its own commitment to the promotion of human rights in Cambodia.
HRW, Cambodian human-rights organizations and other international rights groups, as well as the US State Department, have all detailed ACO Tank Command units involvement in illegal land seizures. These include the November 2009 seizure of farmland from 133 families in Baneay Meanchey province and the use of tanks in 2007 to flatten villagers’ fences and crops in a forceful move to confiscate land.
HRW noted that certain elite units, such as the prime minister’s personal bodyguard, Airborne Brigade 911, Brigade 31 and Brigade 70, were all scheduled to participate in the Phnom Penh portion of the exercise. Both the bodyguard unit and Brigade 70 were involved in the 1997 grenade attack on a political rally by the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, according to HRW.
Airborne Brigade 911, meanwhile, has been linked to arbitrary detentions, political violence, torture and summary executions. Brigade 31 has been accused of involvement in illegal logging, intimidation of opposition party activists and land-grabbing, including the use in 2008 of US-provided trucks to forcibly evict villagers from their land in Kampot province.
Cambodian military officers and soldiers operate without fear of arrest or punishment, human-rights groups say. ‘’Hun Sen has promoted military officers implicated in torture, extra-judicial killings and political violence,’’ said Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director.
While some of these acts have been carried out for the benefit of the business interests of military officers, others have been done at the request of private companies with links to the military. Plans announced by Hun Sen in February for corporate sponsorship of military units to cover defense costs have many worried that the contributions will increase companies’ control over military units to do their bidding.
Cambodian government officials dismissed HRW’s claims. The US has likewise defended its involvement in the exercises. In a July 11 statement by embassy spokesman John Johnson, he said all participants in the exercises were “thoroughly and rigorously vetted” by the embassy and the Defense and State departments.
This was echoed by Burns during his visit to Phnom Penh. “Any military relationship that we conduct around the world is consistent with US law. And so, we look very carefully, we vet carefully, the participants from Cambodia, from other countries, in any kind of exercise that we engage in.”
HRW called on the US government to suspend military aid to Cambodia until an improved and thorough human-rights vetting process could be implemented to screen out abusive individuals or units from receiving US aid or training. However, indications are that the US has little interest in putting the brakes on rapidly improving bilateral ties with Cambodia
Symbolic gestures
One major symbolic step was the removal last year of Cambodia and Laos from a list of Marxist-Leninist states. The redesignation opened the way for increased US investment by removing restrictions on US Export-Import Bank financing and loans to both countries. Washington is currently one of Cambodia’s largest donors with more than $72 million in assistance this year focused on health, education, economic development and government accountability. The US donated $65 million in 2009.
Washington is apparently showing its support in other ways, too. Last month, an American judge sentenced Cambodian-American Chhun Yasith to life in prison for his leading role in an attempted coup in November 2000 by a group calling itself the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF). Although the CFF had previously received some tacit US approval, the verdict sent a message to other Cambodians that support for any anti-government activities from US soil would no longer be tolerated.
Security related ties have also improved, partly out of recognition that several high-profile terror suspects have passed through Cambodia. In January 2008, US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller made a visit to Cambodia to open a new FBI office at the embassy. Mueller said at the time, “It’s an important country to us because of the potential for persons transiting Cambodia or utilizing Cambodia as a spot for terrorism.”
Since then Phnom Penh has requested FBI help to solve the assassination of opposition journalist Khim Sambo and his son in July 2008 during a national election campaign. The journalist was known for his scathing criticisms of Hun Sen’s administration, including allegations of corruption. The government has also requested FBI assistance in a joint investigation into a failed bomb plot against several government buildings by would-be Cambodian rebels in January 2009.
Prior to opening its new office, the FBI was involved in an investigation into the 1997 grenade attack on a rally by the opposition Sam Rainsy Party in which 16 people were killed and an American citizen was among the injured. The US government and the FBI were later criticized for pulling out of the investigation when it was believed they were on the verge of solving it. A June 1997 Washington Post article cited US government officials familiar with a classified FBI report on the investigation as saying the agency had tentatively pinned the blame on Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit.
Jousting between the US and China for influence has become more openly apparent. After the US suspended the delivery of military vehicles following the repatriation of ethnic Uighur asylum seekers from Cambodia to China in December, Beijing stepped in with a $14 million pledge of military aid in May. The 256 military vehicles and 50,000 military uniforms covered under the pledge were delivered by China in June.
China has also provided small arms to Cambodia in recent years, including modern QBZ Chinese-made assault rifles for Cambodia’s special forces units. With China keen to maintain its edge in Cambodia and expand its influence in the rest of the region, US policymakers may feel Washington can ill-afford to miss opportunities to improve ties. The upshot may be that strategic partners are less rigorously vetted as new friends are sought and military relationships developed.
Clifford McCoy is a freelance journalist
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
CAMBODIA: "Cambodians can remain pawns, or can hang together against Sen's autocracy"
By Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Published by the Asian Human Rights Commission
August 17, 2010
(Comments: Dr. Gaffar Peangmeth’ s article posted below touches on the fundamental problem of how Cambodians should do in order to remain free from internal and external oppression. On that very important objective, he pointed out that:
“While the world's democracies ponder how to use their power and will to shape the world, Cambodian democrats and rights activists can choose to remain pawns while the democracies and the autocracies deal, or Cambodians can "hang together" in their opposition to Sen's autocracy. If they do not, they risk being hung separately by the dictator.”
Unlike other countries in the region, there was never any common people not to mention a a foreigner who became king of Cambodia. In Thailand, two Chinese, King Uthong or Ramathibodi I, who founded the Thai kingdom of Ayuthya, in the 14th century, and the other Chinese was king Taksin who founded Thonburi/Bangkok in the 18th century. While Vietnam had many commoners who became leaders, such as the Nguyens, and the Tay Son brothers, just to name a few. In china, dynasties were founded mostly by commoners.
Never in the history of Cambodia, there was such historical happening. As stated earlier, always the same members of the god-kings that became leaders in Cambodia. So, it is not easy to change this attitude of the vast majority of the Cambodian people. Even Pol Pot, and Hun Sen had to come back and worked under Sihanouk. Although, I gave all he credit for writing this article, I wish Gaffer would have suggested more specifically, as to how the Cambodian people should do in order to be able to “hang together.”
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. August 17, 2010)
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Two weeks ago, I presented in this space a contrast of reporter Benoit Bringer's "Cambodge: Les enfants de la décharge" (Cambodia: The Children of the Garbage Dump), a five minute video, and his gallery of photos, showing how Cambodians scavenge Phnom Penh's public garbage dump just to survive; and Andrew Marshall's "Khmer Riche," published in the Jan 12 Sydney Morning Herald, showing the life at the opposite end of Cambodians' economic spectrum – Cambodia's "rich kids" who can spend "$2,000 on drinks in a single night" and whose parents' "newly built neoclassical mansions (are) so large that (Phnom Penh's) old French architecture looks like Lego by comparison."
The contrast serves to forecast Cambodia's unpleasant future, a future the international community sought to avoid when it established the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and invested $3 billion to set Cambodia on a productive course. The current situation in Cambodia and the future it foretells represent an international failure.
Economic Inequality, Conflict, Revolt
Theories abound about economic inequality and its linkage with dissent, unrest, and rebellion by the disadvantaged.
Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) had linked the well-being of a political community with the well-being of the citizens who make it up, and economic inequality with the revolt of the disadvantaged. His analysis on the causes of revolution—"The passion for equality is at the root of revolution," Aristotle said--has inspired students of politics and theorists until today.
One of Aristotle's often-quoted statements reads: "It is in the interest of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so preoccupied with their daily tasks (subsistence) that they have no time for rebellion."
Inequality in Cambodia
Much has been written about inequality in contemporary Cambodia. A few examples: the London-based Global Witness, an anti-graft international nongovernmental organization, detailed in its 2007 "Cambodia's Family Trees" report, Premier Hun Sen's family members, business associates and senior officials, dubbed the "kleptocratic elite," as allegedly engaged in illegal logging and stripping of Cambodia's public assets for personal profit. In 2009, Global Witness's "Country for Sale" report charged, "Over the past 15 years, 45 percent of the country's land has been purchased by private interests." The March-April 2009 Foreign Affairs Magazine's "Cambodia's Curse," by Stanford's Joel Brinkley, exposed United States Embassy-funded studies in Phnom Penh that "showed in stunning detail that Cambodian government officials steal between $300 million and $500 million a year (most years, the state's annual budget is about $1 billion). "
Foreign donors of aid are not blind to what has been happening in Cambodia. But, in the contemporary world in which big and small states still compete for power, influence, wealth; and as all governments are susceptible to their respective interest groups that may clamor for unrestricted economic investment opportunities in Cambodia; there should be no surprise that foreign governments that abhor the current situation of the average Cambodian citizen will not risk upsetting the ruling autocracy and denying the economic pursuits of their domestic constituents by advocating for the civil rights of a foreign people.
The global civil society organization, Transparency International, that leads the fight against corruption, reported Cambodia ranked 158thof 180 countries surveyed on a TI corruption perception index for 2009. In the Aug. 2 Jakarta Globe's "Cambodia's Struggle With Globalization," Australian National University Professor Hal Hill, Asian Development Bank economist Jayant Menon, and Cambodia Economic Association chairman Chan Sophal, reported Cambodia ranks 166th on the TI corruption perception index, and 135th in the World Bank's Doing Business Indicators, out of 181 countries surveyed. They warned: "Achievements over the past decade in particular could be undone by economic crises, or rising civil unrest driven by outrage at the political and bureaucratic excesses."
Politics does strange things
Today's Cambodia of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Decho Hun Sen, (an aristocratic title bestowed by King Father Nororom Sihanouk, himself a former president of a loose coalition of three Khmer factions -- noncommunist nationalist KPNLF, royalist FUNCINPEC, and Khmer Rouge DK -- which fought Vietnamese occupation troops and the Vietnamese-installed Heng Samrin-Hun Sen regime), is far better than the Cambodia of Pol Pot, the master of the 1975-1979 killing fields that took some two million lives.
Without the King Father, China-backed Pol Pot could not have brought down the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic in 1975, a prelude to the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese troops in 1979-1989; and without the King Father, Sen's autocracy and his Cambodian People's Party cannot survive in today's Cambodia.
Making Cambodia's current crisis more complex, Hun Sen, who was installed in power by the Vietnamese but is a former Khmer Rouge commander, is now the King Father's adopted son; and the King Father's biological son is now king of Cambodia. The King Father and Premier Sen need one another. Sen needs the King Father to legitimize his rule; the King Father needs Sen to shield him from criticisms of his policies in the Vietnam War era. And the Khmer traditions that inculcates blind obedience and unquestioned loyalty to authority, ensures the Cambodian autocracy's survival.
The Love for Material Gain
Many Cambodians simply love Sen's transformation of Pol Pot's ghost capital of Phnom Penh into a bustling city of 1.5 million residents, with huge villas, modern supermarkets, a 92-floor Gold Tower skyscraper, in a Cambodia that attracts over two million tourists annually.
Recall a survey by a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, the International Republican Institute, that showed 79 percent of those Cambodians polled say Premier Sen's Cambodia is moving in "the right direction," and cited Sen's new roads, modern bridges, new schools, modern complexes.
Indeed, many Cambodians are now clothed better, housed better, and eat better, too.
Except the more than 30 percent of the population of 14 million live below poverty line--many on less than 50 cents a day.
The discovery of oil off Cambodia’s coastline may be a boon or a curse.
Stability vs. Rights Conflict
Oppression occurs when those who favor stability and security do so at the expense of individual rights. On the other hand, when individual rights and free expression are exercised without restraint, a state of "licentiousness" is reached which breeds instability, insecurity, and chaos. This is no less "oppressive."
In 2006, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (French acronym Licadho), issued "The Facade of Stability" report that accused the world community of failing to "speak out" against Sen's regular human rights breaches, and warned, "Cambodia's current period of relative calm is no guarantor of meaningful long-term stability, and ongoing, systematic human rights violations will, to the contrary, promote instability."
Fast-forward. On June 2, as Sen's Supreme Court issued a guilty verdict against Cambodian lawmaker Mu Sochua, for demanding justice following Sen's televised abusive public speech against her, foreign donors who met in Phnom Penh awarded $1.1 billion in development aid to Sen.
A day earlier, 15 nongovernmental organizations in Cambodia released a briefing paper, "Cambodia Silenced: The End Days of Democracy?" charging, "Since 2009 freedom of expression has continued to be seriously undermined, with the Royal Government of Cambodia crackdown targeting the pillars of democracy in Cambodia: parliamentarians; the media; lawyers; human rights activists; and ordinary citizens."
"Dogs continue to bark, Oxcart continues its trip forward"
The quotation above from an e-mail to me from one of Sen's officers in Phnom Penh, served to remind that national and international critics and rights groups can say what they will, but the ruling Cambodian People's Party moves forward with the aid and recognition of foreign governments – a circumstance that legitimizes Sen's autocracy. Criticisms that break no bones are a tolerable irritant. The regime banned books, makes threats, violates rights and freedom and the rule of law, makes opponents disappear, intimidates opponents, because it can.
The international community should, and could have, nearly 20 years ago, pressured Sen (and other Cambodian parties) to abide by the stipulations of the 1991 Paris Peace Accord. That, the international community didn't do.
To the contrary, it allowed the Khmer Rouge to contest the Accord; it allowed former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen, who lost the first United Nations-organized elections (1993) to seize the co-premiership with the winner to rule the country – an impractical and unworkable formula of a two-headed bird, devised by the King Father to appease Sen and the losing CPP at the expense of his son, Norodom Ranariddh. In 1997, Sen's coup d'etat ran Ranariddh out of town for safety abroad and killed his top officers and cadres. It was the international community that pressured Ranariddh to return to participate in the 1998 elections, thereby, legitimizing Sen's autocracy.
Today, Sen profits from China's unconditional aid as an alternative to the aid from Western nations that preach at him as they write their checks. With Beijing tapping its feet waiting for Sen to run into its arms, the Western nations have lost leverage on Sen.
The Future
Man's hope for the future of a world order in which human rights and free expression can flourish must rest, in the final analysis, on how the world's democracies choose to deal with the world's autocracies.
Former British diplomat, Robert Cooper, of the Council of the European Union, was quoted as saying, today's "struggle for power and prestige goes on as it always has," and "Power is at the service of ideas, but the key ideas are also ideas about power: democracy and autocracy."
While the world's democracies ponder how to use their power and will to shape the world, Cambodian democrats and rights activists can choose to remain pawns while the democracies and the autocracies deal, or Cambodians can "hang together" in their opposition to Sen's autocracy. If they do not, they risk being hung separately by the dictator.
We live in an interdependent, interconnected, globalized world. Cambodians can act, or not.
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About the Author:
Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. He currently lives in the United States. He can be contacted at peangmeth@gmail.com.
The views shared in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the AHRC, and the AHRC takes no responsibility for them.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.