Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Secret Deals, Free Coffins and The Price of Stability

Cartoon by Sacrava

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Op-Ed by MP

Vietnam knows full well from history that it is easier to occupy Khmer lands than to permanently subjugate the Khmer people to foreign will. Hence, the rush to take what it can now while its position in Cambodia is still favourable, and its influence is at its strongest.

The CPP leadership, if it still feels that the blood cursing through its veins is Khmer at all, must face up to this national humiliation and one-sided relationship with Hanoi and start working to protect Khmer interest now.

The world stage is not what it was in the 19th century or even as recent as the seventies when Pol Pot sent troops to Koh Tral. With unity and clarity in purpose Cambodia can still forge friendly relations with Vietnam on just terms without compromising either country's territorial integrity through secretive deals. As neighbours we owe each other the duty to look out for mutual well being, but not to the point of master-slave reciprocation.

No need either to talk of 'free coffins', in the first place, because Cambodia no longer has enough trees to make them. These in thousands of tons of cubic metres were logged and transported to Vietnam by land through convoys and by water as floating rafts down the currents of the Mekong manned by Vietnamese soldiers throughout the 1980s and beyond. For those not fully acquainted with recent history, the idea of ‘free coffins’ may be traced back to those selective tours in early 1980s to Vietnamese military arsenal on which a handful of Cambodian army commanders and other high profile individuals were invited.

No point either in talking about the intervention and sacrifice Vietnam contributed to the salvation of Khmer lives and culture for without mastery over their own ancestral lands, islands and waters, without knowledge of a once known, familiar habitat of well balanced climate and rain forests, without the knowledge that their nation exists of its own accord and possesses a will of its own, then the Khmer nation is as good as dead.

Increasingly, a traditionally proud and dignified people are being coerced into a brave new world of unfamiliar, alien life style by being chained to the sweat shops of the factory floors, the endless stretches of commercial plantations that are in effect monuments to corporate greed, but graveyards of a bygone culture and community.

No matter if climatic variations had its hand in speeding up the demise of the Khmer Empire. What we have before us is no force of nature, no unavoidable act of Providence; rather this is what it is: manmade disaster and ill-thought human engineering on a par with any catastrophe witnessed in Khmer history.

There is nothing wrong with the Khmers as a nation or people - temperate, intelligent, ethical, compassionate and wise even, evidence of which can still be seen through living arts, literature and stone monuments etc. These qualities are the key to national survival and prosperity of any people and are by no means confined to the Khmer race alone. And when such a nation with all its endowed true character and instinct is empowered and allowed to step forward in defence of its own fate and destiny, there is no doubt that it would do so.

That explains the role foreign neighbours have had throughout history in suppression and denial of any sign of an emergence of Khmer nationalist consciousness and revival. This they have successfully accomplished through liquidation of intellectuals and restriction of intellectual activities by one means or another; manipulation of political representation so that a few clans are allowed the freedom to pursue and promote their own personal interests, which owing to being egotistical and limited in vision, they often easily confuse with the much larger, deeply rooted interests of the rest of their compatriots.

Consider the Cult of Personality pervading mass communication and social life as embodied by compulsory insertion of references to “Samdach Euv” (Prince/King Father) or “Samdach Decho” etc. In such a state of confusion and personalisation the public have little say in their own affairs - what has been pronounced good and proper by this body of small elite is also good and proper for them too as citizens, whereas what is being dangled before them both i.e. the elite and citizens, are a mere image and mirage of the real, vast iceberg beneath. The present fact, and extent, of Vietnam’s domination over Cambodia can thus be viewed as a function of its (Vietnam’s) fear of what may follow were the Khmer people to have a real say in their own affairs.

Let’s have a plebiscite to determine what the Khmer people want, what was wrongfully taken from them and therefore should be rightfully reclaimed including coastal waters and islands such as Koh Tral and other legitimate parts of Cambodian sovereignty.

MP

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello out there,
Hun Sen doesn't need tree to make his coffin or the land to burry him, because Hun Sen knows sooner or later Khmer people will chop him up to feed Ah Kror Peu Yuon, sihahuk's pet.

Anonymous said...

Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime

Members:
King Sihanouk
Pol Pot
Nuon Chea
Ieng Sary
Ta Mok
Khieu Samphan
Son Sen
Ieng Thearith
Kaing Kek Iev
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...

Committed:
Tortures
Brutality
Executions
Massacres
Mass Murder
Genocide
Atrocities
Crimes Against Humanity
Starvations
Slavery
Force Labour
Overwork to Death
Human Abuses
Persecution
Unlawful Detention


Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime

Members:
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...

Committed:
Attempted Murders
Attempted Murder on Chea Vichea
Attempted Assassinations
Attempted Assassination on Sam Rainsy
Assassinations
Assassinated Journalists
Assassinated Political Opponents
Assassinated Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Assassinated over 80 members of Sam Rainsy Party.

"But as of today, over eighty members of my party have been assassinated. Countless others have been injured, arrested, jailed, or forced to go into hiding or into exile."
Sam Rainsy LIC 31 October 2009 - Cairo, Egypt

Executions
Executed over 100 members of FUNCINPEC Party
Murders
Murdered 3 Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Murdered Chea Vichea
Murdered Ros Sovannareth
Murdered Hy Vuthy
Murdered Journalists
Murdered Khim Sambo
Murdered Khim Sambo's son
Murdered members of Sam Rainsy Party.
Murdered activists of Sam Rainsy Party
Murdered Innocent Men
Murdered Innocent Women
Murdered Innocent Children
Killed Innocent Khmer Peoples.
Extrajudicial Execution
Grenade Attack
Terrorism
Drive by Shooting
Brutalities
Police Brutality Against Monks
Police Brutality Against Evictees
Tortures
Intimidations
Death Threats
Threatening
Human Abductions
Human Abuses
Human Rights Abuses
Human Trafficking
Drugs Trafficking
Under Age Child Sex
Corruptions
Bribery
Embezzlement
Treason
Border Encroachment, allow Vietnam to encroaching into Cambodia.
Signed away our territories to Vietnam; Koh Tral, almost half of our ocean territory oil field and others.
Illegal Arrest
Illegal Mass Evictions
Illegal Land Grabbing
Illegal Firearms
Illegal Logging
Illegal Deforestation

Illegally use of remote detonation bomb on Sokha Helicopter, while Hok Lundy and other military officials were on board.

Lightning strike many airplanes, but did not fall from the sky. Lightning strike out side of airplane and discharge electricity to ground.
Source: Lightning, Discovery Channel

Illegally Sold State Properties
Illegally Removed Parliamentary Immunity of Parliament Members
Plunder National Resources
Acid Attacks
Turn Cambodia into a Lawless Country.
Oppression
Injustice
Steal Votes
Bring Foreigners from Veitnam to vote in Cambodia for Cambodian People's Party.
Use Dead people's names to vote for Cambodian People's Party.
Disqualified potential Sam Rainsy Party's voters.
Abuse the Court as a tools for CPP to send political opponents and journalists to jail.
Abuse of Power
Abuse the Laws
Abuse the National Election Committee
Abuse the National Assembly
Violate the Laws
Violate the Constitution
Violate the Paris Accords
Impunity
Persecution
Unlawful Detention
Death in custody.

Under the Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime, no criminals that has been committed crimes against journalists, political opponents, leaders of the Free Trade Union, innocent men, women and children have ever been brought to justice.

Gumar Vann, SRP in Philadelphia, USA

Anonymous said...

COGNAC of PRIVATE PARTY!