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.
FOR PUBLICATION AHRC-ETC-007-2010
August 17, 2010
An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission
CAMBODIA: "Cambodians can remain pawns, or can hang together against Sen's autocracy"
August 15, 2010
Two weeks ago, I presented in this space a contrast of reporter Benoit Bringer's "Cambodge: Les enfants de la decharge" (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.
...............
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.
# # #
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.
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.
...............
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.
# # #
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.
19 comments:
Cambodian constitution is created by harmful persons, it allows men with bad will to become dictator in Cambodia.
It very hard or may be impossible to implement democracy in Cambodia because of that constitution.
Without democracy Cambodians will never know justice.
PM names judged, PM could last all his life, judges will never be fair because they don't want to lose their job.
REFORM THE ARMY AND THE POLICE! DEMONCRACY WILLPROSPER IN CAMBODIA!
OR AH KWACK WILL HAVE STROKE SOON!LOOK AT THE PICTURE OF THE MOTHERFUCKER!
SHUT THE FUCK UP, MORON. I FUCK YOUR ASS!!
Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime's leaders and members:
Pol Pot
Nuon Chea
Ieng Sary
Ta Mok
Khieu Samphan
Son Sen
Ieng Thearith
Kaing Guek Eav aka Samak Mith Duch
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong aka Samak Mith Yaem
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka aka Samak Mith Muth
Hun Sen...
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's leaders and members:
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong aka Samak Mith Yaem
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka aka Samak Mith Muth...
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.
Sam Rainsy LIC 31 October 2009 - Cairo, Egypt
"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."
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 10 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 detonate 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 Vietnam 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.
Thanks, Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth:
A point well-made, you've covered all bases, I am totally with you.
However it remains to be seen if the oppressed populace at home can grasp your message without the intervention of the local activists and their spices and spins so to render it more palatable to the mass.
Stability vs. Rights Conflict? Seems to me a bit of a paradox.
A stool has to have at least three legs to stand up and be stable; similarly a country or a state has to have three essential pillars to support and hold together its union:
1. Proper governance (which Cambodia sorely misses, to say the least).
2. Safety and security of its citizens (citizens are constantly under external and internal threats).
3. The citizens’ rights in pursuits of happiness (only the privileged few who are cronies of the ruler do).
If any one of the component above is missing, there won’t be any stability. If there is a semblance of stability, albeit temporary as some people may like to think (especially those who stand to gain from the regime), it is only an illusion.
Looking at the various photos of the ordinary Khmers on the city streets and rural communes, one cannot help accepting that the current mood is that of dismayed, disheartened, and dejected people.
To wait on Khmer politicians to devise a way out of this abyss is like waiting for rainfall in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Khmer might have to be pawn for another century.
I personally think of the Palestinians Fatah and Hezbollah, or Chetchenian movements as an attractive outlet besides laying still to be strangled and bled to a slow and agonizing death.
I see that Dr. Peang-Meth has not learned anything from the history. Perhaps, he was a teacher for so long that he forgot to learn or that he can only preach but not learn.
Lon Nol said Sihanouk was bad so we got to get rid of him; then Pol Pot said Lon Nol was bad, and we got to replace him, ...and the same story keeps repeating.
You see everybody accused everybody of corruption and incompetent, yet they are the same bunch.
Dr. Peang-Meth, let me ask you a question. For everything that you preach here, do you have a workable solution to get the problem fixed? Don't tell people the problems they already know, and don't preach an idealist solution that no one has the mean to implement. Stop living in you fantasy world, and come out to do real works to help the poors in Cambodia.
People like you are only good at preaching, and criticizing others, but never lift a finger to do practical work on the ground. What a shame! or maybe you don't have any.
Having An Independence judiciary and proper formal education system, Cambodia can head to a right direction. No one above the law and knowing who should be your leader.
Thanks, Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth:
A point well-made, This is so pewerful information that Cambodian should learn from.
Ilike your ending:
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.
However, we together to hung Sen instead.
To change constitution or leadership in Cambodia,five to six million Khmer people must stand up and protest against Khmer communist Hun Sen,must sacrifice Khmer lives to get freedom;some countries did that such as French revolution...so on...
If you live in the United States; posses some fire arm. Mrs. Hillary and her United Nations cronies are working to disarm US citizens of their rights to bear arm to protect themselves from an over extending government.
No kidding, the UN is trying hard to disarm the American citizens. Obama is no friend to the American people. He hates true Americans and loves Saul Alynsky, John Kanyian, Carl Marx and all his hard left fascist to bring America down. Don't believe me? You are a frog in a boiling pot.
Cambodia is doomed very badly!
You have problems in the east and the west with respect to borders and then you have problems internally with corrupiton and so on and so forth!
Even the opposition parties can't work together (SRP, Human Right, FUNCINPEC, etc.)
I like to see article on how you can solve Cambodia's problems and not article on Cambodia's problems as Cambodian problems are quite obvious in front of our every eyes.
Solution is what we need.
So please someone, spell out your solution in this block and let us see it.
Today Hun Sen is glad,but tomorrow he will be dead.One day when the storm is over,it will be a calm day. The evil man like Hun Sen,Khmer people curse all the time,he will die soon. To solve today Khmer problems, all Khmer people must stand up,be brave,not be afraid to sacrifice Khmer life like French revolution did in the past. please wait,time will come.Khmer people now very ,very mad with Hun Sen govt. The Media news must spread the news around the globe about what Hun sen treating pretty bad on Khmer People.Now people can internet to communicate one another very fast. Khmer people can make a big difference,If Khmer people stick together as a rock.
None could help you CPP, you touch your end, when you are bad you cannot stay, look at Sihanouk, Lon Nol, Pol Pot..BYE BYE..
Folks,
Solutions for Cambodia is not that difficult to devise.
So what is the problem then you may ask...
We'll its simple. Those who are part of the problem is in control and they have enough guns and ammunitions to make sure they stay in control for a long time.
Problems in Cambodia are not unique to nations of the world. It can be solved. The bigger challenge is there is no will to change.
Corruption is very gratifying, and very self-serving. Tell me why would anyone in control would want to change that?
Cambodia's problem is NOT just Hun Sen alone.
Cambodia problem is Cambodians, the people of the land. The mindset, the culture of corruption, the attitudes, and moral beliefs of society is really what make or break a nation.
People's characters and behavior is the consequence of their society moral system. The moral system in Cambodia for the most part is "Me Firs" mentality. It is what I can get out of my country rather than what I can contribute for the better of my countrymen.
After Hun Sen is gone, who is to say there is not a line of people waiting to take his place and continue the status quo?
The absence of a serving mentality is Cambodia's great illness.
A desire to serve in public office for the better of the country is not something that can be govern by more laws. It has to naturally arise out of the culture itself.
Take heart fellow Khmer, Cambodia is going to be the laughing stock of Asia for awhile!
Well said 9:20PM. Despite I don’t like Hun Sen government, I’m one of the few who do not believe in a regime change to solve the problem, because the root of the problem lies within Khmer society and mentality. The only way to get Cambodia out of the current poverty and misery is by making each and every Cambodian understand that they have a place and role to play in the society, and they must focus on their role in accordance with their place, rather than keep blaming others.
Even though, I not entirely understand Dr. Peng's remarkably flowery writings, undeniably confessing I love continuing to read them.
As he firmly said, "Without Sihanouk, there will be without Pol Pot or Sen"..... I once awhile have simply said, " If SihanoukVarman just stays as a traditional Khmer King, not selfishly involving in Khmer PoliSick, our beloved nation would become the most powerful in SE countries!"
I think therefore I undoubtedly believe that our beloved Khmers are increasingly eagering to be free, but still confusingly naive about what freedom meant? That's the continuous reason why they simply are tricked, cheated, defrauded by SenVarman and his bloodsucking parasites' CPP. But I'm still strongly hopeful that our beloved Khmers are bravely wanting to learn more about freedom, because the knowledge of freedom is like raging rivers tirelessly flow into the sea and eventually freedom will flood our beloved Khmers' heart and soul!
At first glance it looks like Dr. Gaffar Peang Meth loves Cambodia very much, much more than Cambodians who are fighting now in their homeland to protect and develop Cambodia. For me, Dr. Peang Meth and Dr. Naranhkiry ( allegedly highly educated in the US ) are nothing more than two fowes that cannot eat grapes keep preaching about their ultra nationalism or about their loving for Cambodia. I would say it's just crocodile tears. Your speech may sound good for some near sighted peoples but to well informed ones, it's look like funeral oration. So Please stop barking any more, Dr. Peang Meth. If you both are real patriots, please ask Dr. Tith Naranh Kiry to come together and defend our territory at the Preah Vihear Temple. OK?
7:36PM
It seems like you do not value the good idea and you are good in distracting the good idea in order to serve your autocrats.
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