Dr. Tith Naranhkiri’s loose cannon

By Khmerization
17th November, 2009

“if you don’t help to row the boat, don’t drag your feet in the waters.”

“Out of nowhere, Dr. Tith Naranhkiri leaped out from behind and stabbed Khmerization at the back unprovoked.” This is how I feel when he labelled me an “ultra-nationalist” in his diabolic and vitriolic diatribes against me and Mr. Sam Rainsy recently without any provocations from me.

May I say that it is a privilege that my opinions had caught the attention and the ire of one of Cambodia’s so-called “super-intellectual”- a Cambodian-born professor of American Johns Hopkins University of high calibre. However, one would be very uncomfortable to be accused of being an “ultra-nationalist” by the same person who shared the same ideals and claimed to be a nationalist, a patriot, a Cambodia-lover and the defender of Cambodia territorial integrity, for expressing the opinions and defending the same ideals that he purported to represent.

I have no intention of launching a personal attack against Dr. Tith here, but in order to learn more about the man and what he represents, a family history should be examined. His father, Khim Tith, was a minister in the Sihanouk regime in the 1950s and 1960s and was very subservient to Sihanouk while benefiting from his patronage, only to betray him at the end. He later joined the Khmer Rouge and has disappeared mysteriously. Dr. Tith Naranhkiri received a Cambodian government-funded scholarship to further his studies abroad in the 1960s, but, unlike Mr. Sam Rainsy who went to study in France at his own expenses, Dr. Tith has never repaid a debt of gratitude in kind to the Cambodian nation as he opted to live his life in comfort in the United States. Then after the Paris Peace Accord, he had joined and toyed with the royalist Funcinpec Party in the 1990s, only to be so bitter with the party after he failed to win any parliamentary seat and secure a ministerial post for himself after the 1993 election.

After his unsuccessful political stint with Funcinpec, he vehemently and constantly attacked Funcinpec and often take swipes at opposition activists and other opposition parties such as the Sam Rainsy Party. Many people who knew him, knew him as a bombastic and an arrogant and a control freak who think only he knows best and can’t get along with any group because of his arrogance and I-know-best attitude.

After he returned to the United States after his failed political adventure in Cambodia, one doesn’t know what ideals Dr. Tith is representing now. If he claims to represent Cambodia’s moderate views, he never show it because during the past one year of the Preah Vihear conflict, no one ever heard Dr. Tith’s voice about Preah Vihear, one way or the other, beside launching his tirades and condemnations of Mr. Hun Sen and, sometimes, Mr. Sam Rainsy. By observation, he doesn’t represent anything other than becoming a loose cannon and firing cheap shots at anyone whom he doesn’t agree with.

I must come out and vehemently defend my Khmerization team here. Dr.Tith’s lumping the “Khmerization group” as an ultra-nationalist group is unfair to other contributors of Khmerization blog because all the opinions expressed here at Khmerization blog is the sole responsibility of Khmerization alone. The other members of the team are only contributors and have not contributed to or have nothing to do with my personal opinions.

Furthermore, I categorically deny Dr. Tith’s accusation because I have never been an “ultra-nationalist” or a revanchist as I have never advocated for Cambodia to send troops to retake lost territories or to invade another country nor have I called for tough actions or persecutions against other ethnic groups living in Cambodia. I have always had a moderate view on everything by consistently calling for a good neighbourly co-existence with Cambodia’s neighbours. But, with uncompromising patriotism and unconditional love for my motherland, I will not be silenced or intimidated into silence for the defence of Cambodian territorial integrity. If for trying to defend one’s own country’s territorial integrity would make me an “ultra-nationalist”, then I am proud to be one.

But I still can’t understand Dr. Tith’s comments in the letter because they seem contradictory and don’t make any sense. He mauled me (Khmerization) and Kulen Monorom, while lauding Mr. Rainsy’s letter which is defending territorial integrity as what I have always done. But one paragraph later in the same letter, he also mauled Mr. Sam Rainsy for uprooting the border poles.

I want to make it clear here. I have never attempted to “make Thailand the worst enemy of Cambodia and Vietnam the defender of Cambodia” as insinuated by Dr.Tith. In fact, I have always consistently advocated for the defence of Cambodia’s eastern and western borders alike. Maybe Dr. Tith has just come out of a coma or hibernation not know my views regarding the eastern borders with Vietnam. If Dr. Tith has read my previous editorials, he would not have said what he had said against me. Or maybe he has a hidden agenda against me for saying what he had said about me. If he had chosen to attack me because he wanted an attention, then he certainly get it now.

I am expecting Dr. Tith to be aggrieved and distressed by this article. And because of his arrogance and unwounded pride, and with the given name that means “a mountain jungle person” (nara+aranh+kiri), I am bracing for a very strong response from him soon. But to end my response, may I say that, despite my strong reactions to his shots against me, I still respect Dr. Tith as one of Cambodian learned men and hope he won’t continue to discourage others from defending Cambodia’s territorial integrity. As the Cambodian saying goes “boe min chuoy chork chuoy chev, kom york cheung rear teuk”- (if you don’t help to row the boat, don’t drag your feet in the waters).