Cambodians need to help themselves

Jun. 7, 2011
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

Cambodians must help themselves more for others to help them. Their journey to rights, freedom and the rule of law is a human rights issue that deserves more international help. Still, the democratic opposition must focus its energy and activity on the problem they all hope to solve, not on each other's shortcomings.

Many Cambodians fear the Khmer race and culture will be usurped if Vietnamese are permitted to migrate to Cambodia unchecked, and Thailand continues to threaten Cambodia's border in a contentious, long-running dispute over an historic site.

Yet Cambodians, in general, are not united or unified; democrats have difficulties finding a common voice, conflicts of personality and among groups are commonplace.

To save Cambodia, Cambodians call for "reactivation" -- implementation -- of the 20-year-old Paris Peace Accord, signed by 18 governments and the four warring Cambodian factions, with the United Nations bearing witness.

But the accord is a dead paper. The best stipulations are only as good as the effectiveness with which they are implemented. There's no world guardian of individual rights, freedom and the rule of law coming to the rescue.

Foreign governments watch the Hun Sen regime violate rights, freedom and the rule of law; the neighbors to the east and the west encroach on Khmer territory. Aid donors even provide annual funds to keep the regime afloat.

Let's face reality: Democrats are on their own. National interest dictates the actions of foreign governments, who deal with Hun Sen, as they needed a sense of stability and security (through oppression) to produce other activities, political and economic. They aren't blind to Hun Sen's autocracy or ignorant of what it does to Cambodia.

But they don't see a credible alternative.

Frustrated Cambodians say they don't need preachers behind a keyboard; they need people who can make things happen. But if each Khmer does something, things will happen.

Hun Sen loves the situation. With the help of his "willing executioners" and his party machine, he perpetuates it. Sadly, some regime opponents fall for his invite to be distracted from fighting autocracy and involve themselves in wasteful infighting. Doubts and suspicions are sown, gossip and rumors spread to stir and divide opponents.

A week ago, a tape-recorded message of a 2007 telephone conversation between Kem Sokha, head of the Human Rights Party, and Hun Sen created an uproar amongst democrats. Radio Free Asia's May 29 report quoted Sokha's allegation that Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party destroyed the royalist FUNCINPEC party and the Sam Rainsy Party, and "now they want to destroy the Human Rights Party." Sokha denied he was ever a CPP puppet.

The conversation lent credibility to the assertion that the HRP was created by Hun Sen to undermine the SRP. On the recording, Hun Sen praised the HRP's success through his financial support and by allowing it to use the Olympic stadium to hold its congress.

In yet another illustration of the self-destructive tendencies of the democratic opposition parties, the Khmer People's Power Movement chairman, Serey Ratha Sourn, circulated a letter SRP president Sam Rainsy wrote to present his "utmost sincere greetings" to the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, with the wishes for "friendship and brotherhood" between Cambodia and Vietnam "based on mutual aid and mutual respects."

Reaction to more critical matters was eclipsed. For example, in April, leading international human rights groups urged foreign governments to oppose the Hun Sen regime's proposed law that would allow it to shut down any group considered opposed to the regime.

In early May, Christophe Peschoux, head of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, was forced to leave Cambodia: "When there is no more limit to executive power ... it becomes arbitrary and abusive," he said. "This is what is happening today."

A May 25 demonstration appealed to the regime to save the Prey Lang forest, home to fruit trees, wild animals and considerable biodiversity. It's a green space that covers about 3,600 square kilometers cross four provinces and the traditional home of members of the Kuoy ethnic minority. Some 700,000 people rely on the forest for survival.

In September 2009, Hun Sen approved a 70-year lease on the land to Vietnamese-owned CRCK Rubber Development Co. Ltd., which began land clearing early this year for a rubber plantation. On May 30, SRP lawmakers asked Hun Sen to cancel all economic land concessions in Prey Lang. A CPP governor blasted SRP lawmakers for playing politics while the concessions bring development.

Of no less importance was a Khmer poem on the Internet about Khmer soldiers at the Khmer-Thai border. It asked why the soldiers are being abandoned with insufficient food, water, medicine, clothing, blankets and mosquito nets while Hun Sen's security guards are well taken care of.

At the same time, the Bangkok Post ran a story about Thai soldiers, whose "effective weapon" is the "Fresh meals, better living conditions and support from locals (that) are all part of the psychological war. ... During a break in the clashes, Thai troops often invite Cambodian soldiers for a meal." What's wrong with this picture?

Lost in cyberspace was the story of SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua and her team on the "campaign trail" in northwestern Cambodia, visiting one village at a time. In the May 31 posting, Sochua and her team were "surrounded, harassed and threatened" by village authorities and CPP youth members as she told villagers of their rights to free public health care and education.

Cambodians must help themselves more for others to help them. Their journey to rights, freedom and the rule of law is a human rights issue that deserves more international help. Still, the democratic opposition must focus its energy and activity on the problem they all hope to solve, not on each other's shortcomings.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.,is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at

peangmeth@yahoo.com.