Democracy Square: The physical anchor point for political dramatization and communication

Perspective

By: MEERKAT, the Barn Raider

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell

Democracy Square:

The physical anchor point for political dramatization and communication

On March 30, 1997, supporters of Sam Rainsy coming mainly from impoverished countryside and garment factory worker communities surrounding the Capital City of Phnom Penh, converged on the northwest corner of Wat Botum Wadei Park south of Sothearos Boulevard, east of the Royal Palace and across the street from the old National Assembly Building, to voice their discontent over the heavily-tainted Hun Sen government’s judicial system. Shortly after the crowd began to gather to hear the speech four fragment grenades were tossed into the peaceful demonstrators killing 16 citizens and maimed at least 150 of them including an American political observer. Mr. Rainsy himself narrowly escaped this murder and mayhem.

Covert political violence during the 1993 election aside, this act of savagery reaffirms Cambodia’s long-established “political culture” of the past such as that of Sihanouk’s and Lon Nol’s, which subscribes to the notion that government power is a zero-sum (all or nothing) game. Hun Sen and the CPP understand power only in absolutist terms ― power is not shared, it is accumulated and protected. In addition, his approach to government was more reflective of the political culture of the communist single-party state which was forged into his psyche in his earlier career with the Khmer Rouge and later under the tutelage of Hanoi, which subscribes to the radical view that the power of a government is derived not from political transformation but secured by a revolution or a coup, any sign of challenge, no matter how insignificant is always seen as reactionary, and must be stamped out at the earliest opportune.

Hun Sen and the CPP was first installed and later institutionalized to power through crafty electoral and political maneuvering masterminded by a legion of shadowy communist Vietnamese apparatchik accompanied by a robust paramilitary security arm that are responsible for the planning and execution of a well established modus operandi down to the letter. Together they have successfully utilized the legal framework of the new constitution to align the distribution of government power with the de facto distribution of their bureaucratic and military power. Not a single branch or agency of this proxy government has been able to operate outside of the grip of the Hun Sen/Heng Samrin/Chea Sim triumvirate party-line and Hanoi’s political hegemony.

Cambodia under Hun Sen and the CPP is a hollow polity. The National Assembly is nothing more than a rubber stamp which is being used to ratify the government’s decisions. The judiciary is derivative of the administration rather than being independent. Khmer citizens know that they cannot rely on the court system for redress or remedy, especially against the willful abuse of the well-connected, local corrupted authority and police. The bureaucracy has never been capable of establishing its sense of professional responsibility and it only helps to oppress citizens. Most political observers and a number of foreign diplomats have concluded that in order for Cambodia to prosper its “political culture” would have to change.

The principal goal and the mission of SRP have never changed from the early days of Khmer National Party to the present Sam Rainsy Party ― to mobilize Cambodian society to participate in the political process in order to bring about orderly and progressive change to our archaic and brutal political culture, and to help free our nation from the influence and encroachment of Hanoi.

However in the chaos and cloud of dust resulting from our resistance against ”violent assaults from above” and the party’s apparent lacking in interplay, SRP mission priorities have not always been clearly communicated throughout its constituency. SRP has periodically been alleged by skeptics and opponents of waging subversive counterculture campaign to implant foreign values and ideas, and to undermine Hun Sen’s and CPP efforts in establishing order and stability mandated by donor countries and investors to keep the much needed aids flowing. Sam Rainsy himself has been frequently unfairly labeled by critics as a royalist, communist, and an imperialist agent simultaneously. The party has never been prompt or vigorous in counteracting the opponents’ mudslinging.

The task of introducing democratic change to a nation which has never seen or experienced genuine freedom and democracy, is indeed a tall order and an impossible dream. However, as autocracy begins to ratchet up, people will naturally long for the alternatives to life under tyranny. This is when SRP can begin to fully deploy its unlimited intellectual capacity, and its liberal democratic ideals against the outdated “politics as usual” that has been riddled with familism, cupidity, narrow horizon, and reluctance to tolerate opposing points of view, prevalent in the Sihanouk and Lon Nol’s periods.

As for containing and mitigating the encroachment and intervention of Hanoi in our national affairs, oversea-based SRP has dedicated the highest level of efforts and resources it could afford lobbying peace and freedom advocates around the world to influence Vietnam to abandon her futile efforts in forcing Cambodia into the de facto Indochina communist orbit. However to achieve success outside of our borders, our nation will have to gain a very substantial ground at home in establishing a strong foundation necessary for a democratic system of government to take hold. In other words the domestic front will have to reach critical mass before the international front begins to yield. At some point in the near future, Vietnam, like her old patron the USSR will inevitably be facing the menace of globalization, regional geopolitics, global warming and climate change, environmental degradation, and last but not least the growing social unrest (citizens’ demand for changes) which will eventually alter the geopolitical landscape in favor of Cambodia.

The March 30, 1997 grenade attack did not permanently cripple the will of the ordinary Khmer to come out to the street and protest in one form or another. In fact many more mass rallies and demonstrations were organized by SRP and other opposition parties during the 1998 elections ballot count. The attempt to restrict access and denial of public space using the threat of violence, and arrest can only foster deeper resentment and help galvanize citizens’ determination to hold the ground and fight back.

In the subsequent years following the grenade attack, Hun Sen’s “praetorian guard” has wasted no time in devising new strategies to prevent, disrupt and neutralize citizen’s protests. The National Assembly building has now been relocated further east, to where there is no available public space for any sizeable crowd to rally and have a meaningful demonstration. The so-called Freedom Park has been constructed at the west end of the City, miles away from principal governmental seats as to enable the accountable office of the public representatives/officials to extricate themselves out of their relevant duty and claim ignorance of the people’s demands, and to conveniently dismiss any responsibility in any eventual heavy-handed treatment of demonstrators by security police in case a violent confrontation breaks out. The regulations concerning the use of the new Freedom Park as a rallying point, is ANYTHING but FREE.

The rights of citizens to enter the city and subsequently to congregate in the public squares have just been curtailed to almost nothing. With neither debate nor protest allowed, the rights of the people to representations have been unceremoniously pulled right out from underneath them. Why should the National Assembly where elective representatives of the people conduct business on behalf of the constituents be tucked away out of view from a public square, and sealed off by iron fence and gates like a fortress? Why the so-called Freedom Park is located so far apart from where citizens are supposed to be congregating and effectively exercising their rights to complaint within view and earshot of their elective representatives? And why the park rules and regulations are heavily loaded with restrictions that turn a public forum park into a virtual FORBIDEN PARK instead? The answer should be very obvious to anyone ― Hun Sen and CPP’s bastion of dictatorship in Cambodia is being fast and furiously erected as the world watch.

The Hun Sen and CPP’s autocratic engine has been racing ahead of the Khmer civil society to find more ways to block access to democracy, while Sam Rainsy and SRP are making a sustained effort to gear up, mobilize, and lead the grassroots political movement to reclaim “the rights to the City and the rights to stand in Democracy Square”. At the present there is no physical public space in the City of Phnom Penh where our citizens can call theirs. Physical and virtual barriers to a free, safe and secure public forum have just been erected around all potential gathering spaces. The critical and urgent task for SRP is to prepare to lead the efforts in the struggle to gradually dismantle all barriers until Khmer citizens gain full access to the middle of the ideal and symbolic square. While attempting to control the voice of dissent, the enemies of democracy are fully aware of the risk they will have to face. Each collective foothold the grassroots gain toward the imaginary square, the balance of power is tilting the way of democracy. Each aggression on the part of the government (which is most likely to occur in every confrontation) will cost them their hard-to-come-by credibility and legitimacy needed for securing international support of their policies and actions. The government has more reasons to be worried each time a clash with demonstrators takes place.

The advance or the setback resulting from the battle for democracy square is neither instantaneous nor obvious, but very likely to be subtle and gradual. Consider the first memorial monument erected soon after the grenade attack, almost immediately after it went up, it was taken down, then dumped into the sewage effluent at the river’s edge one block away, while no authority bothered to address this sacrilegious act.

The concrete replacement monument, a chedei, larger and heavier than the previous, went up in the presence of various diplomatic corps and members of the media. It is still standing as a testimony to the incremental victory of the people. In some small measures it is also a token victory for Sam Rainsy and the SRP to be cherished. Like the Chinese students’ demonstration in Tiananmen Square in 1989, those who gave their life in the quest for liberty shall forever live in the conscience of those who are still alive, and that the ground where their blood was shed should be sacred and belong to the living, and should stand as a reminder that “freedom is not free”.

The latest and most dramatic act of defiance came on 25 October 2009, during a Buddhist Kathen celebration in Svay Rieng province, when Sam Rainsy led local villagers and officials from SRP in uprooting six wooden temporary posts (border post # 185) marking the country’s border with Vietnam, which has been in a demarcation process for some time; villagers said that the Vietnamese had illegally shifted the posts onto Cambodian soil in their rice fields and that their complaints to the local authorities in this respect had remained unavailing. The incident and the setting fit the concept of the “Democracy Square” as a place where people assemble to dramatize and communicate their disagreement with the government. It did well to expose Hun Sen’s government and his patron/accomplice in Hanoi, nonetheless the ultimate windfall effect of this symbolic display of will was primarily intended to fall squarely on the collective conscience of the Khmer nation at home and elsewhere, which it did.

Cambodians have displayed their unmitigated resilience, and are not hesitant to take to the street whenever they felt that their collective voice needs to be heard. Wherever they make a stand such ground is their “Democracy Square”. SRP representatives have always availed themselves to be present and to lead marches and demonstrations when and where they are needed.

Going forward SRP friends and foes should have no misgiving about where, when and how Sam Rainsy and his SRP grassroots movement will wage the campaign to build the foundation of democracy and freedom, and for our nation’s rights to self-determination. Hun Sen and the CPP may step up their efforts in erecting more physical barriers to keep us out of democracy squares, but they will never be able to prevent us from constructing democracy squares in our minds.