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11 comments:
Dictatorship in Asia, particularly in Cambodia will remain with us for a number of years to come. From Sihanouk to Lon Nol to Pol Pot and finally to Hun Sen, Cambodia has no known leaders no other than those who ruled and is ruling the country with the iron fist with no desire to leave the top job.
Democracy and justice are most desirable objects to have in a country, though they are concepts to be developed and implemented in a society, they run completely contrary to human wicked nature and greed.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, who managed to separate Singapore from Malaysia and its subsequent transformation from a relatively underdeveloped colonial outpost with no natural resources into a modern and rich country in SE Asia had also ruled Singapore for a long time and not always with a true democracy. Lee was also known as a benevolent dictator.
Hun Sen or any Cambodian leaders of the future will not transform Cambodia into a true democratic state; the Cambodian people will have to do that themselves. For that to happen smoothly, the younger generation of Cambodians needs to be well educated formally and the rest of the population informally through the work of NGO, Cambodians who live abroad and those who are interested in helping Cambodian fight injustice.
Stability in the country is the key to the emergence of Cambodian people who are no longer submissive, but assertive, well informed and ready to apply pressure to steer the ship of the country in the direction they want to see it go rather than that contemplated by the dictator and his cronies.
We do not need to have a leader like Nelson Mandela of South Africa or Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma to achieve that objective in the long run; after all, Aung San Suu Kyi cannot do that in Burma either. If you need to clear the jungle to get out of the trap, you will do with whatever you have in your hands and not waiting till the tractor comes; if we did, we might never get out of the forest alive. What we need is that, though we may disagree on how to solve Cambodia's myriads of problems, we can work either together or on our own separate ways, but not against each other and fight among ourselves to help push Cambodia towards a better society by forcing the government to have no choice, but to bend to some extent at least to the will of the people. Opposition party or parties play a key role in helping to educate the people at the local levels to understand their rights and thus must be helped to become stronger.
Nobody disputes the fact that the government of PM Hun Sen needs to go or change drastically, but Cambodians are so divided locally and abroad and in addition, Hun Sen serves very well Vietnam’s interests, deals also well with the current government of Thailand and lastly engages in a very good business with China so taking him out by force will not be possible and can turn Cambodia upside down, the condition she and her people cannot afford to have.
Appling pressures and being patient, let us all work together for the common good of our beloved country, Cambodia, the land each one of us loves and wishes to see becoming prosperous.
Pissed off
Correction:
"..Cambodia has known no leaders other than those who ruled..."
Pissed off
Pissed off,
Can you explain why Lon Nol was a dictator. From the article I read the other day posted here in KI. Lon Nol was anything but a dictator, when he ousted Sihanouk from power, there was no blood, but with votes from the country and those close to him, even his dear cousins.
Sihanouk was to busy flying around the world, making movies and pursuing his singing careers to realized that the country voted him out of power. When he couldn't face the embarrassment, he hid in China where today he remains as a rat, hopefully will die as a rat sometime soon where he belongs.
Aus.
I agree with Pissed off. From the time I was born, grew up in the country and living in the country until today, I haven't seen one good leader that I should respect. They all were/are corrupted in different ways. But the worst and stupidest groups in the Cambodian history is the communist dictatorship, including ah kanchas xihanouk, Pol Pot and a kwak Hun Sen and CPP. Among the worst, CPP and a kwak's regime are WORST than any group that I could remember.
The fucking CPP government will be soon destroyed by force.
Dey Dom
"Sein, how come you don't smell dictatorship like me anymore? You smell like Socheata's ass"
You all,provide a great comments and very educated one too.Thank!! Currently Cambodian dictator,rulers,ex-khmer rouge ruler and its supporter are/were thick of corrupted leading our country to a danger zone.Soon,we,the Cambodian will be slave and with no place to live with all of this land concessions.We needed to all unite and break away from this thick layer of evil,nonsenses,and corrupted dictator one for all.We need to peel this thick layer out and let a fresh one emerges.It's a shame! From khmer rouge to ex-khmer rouge and they still living among us and allowing them to control our life.Shame!
dictatorship for the country, for the
people like in Singapore is much better than being the Viet slave.
If Cambodia is like Singapore we are much better off.
Lon Nol overthrew Prince Sihanouk because he and his group disagreed with Sihanouk on how to deal with Vietnamese problems in Cambodia. Other motives might have been there as well, especially that of prince Sirimatak and some other high-ranking military officials.
In 1973 Lon Nol ordered the killing of several students who protested against his dictatorship and rampant corruptions at all levels of his government. The protest was started by the law students and spread across the city to other students with the same concerns then it culminated with a large gathering of students in the area of the Independence Monument and Wat Lanka. I was there and witnessed with my very own eyes the shooting mercilessly of students by Lon Nol’s troops. I do not need to read the book to learn about it. History was written permanently in my brain through the sight and scene given to it by my eyes.
Lon Nol also lost the 1972 Khmer Republic first presidential election and every Khmer who lived in Lon Nol’s controlled areas of Cambodia knew that. The winner was Mr. In Tam. Lon Nol also used his younger brother, Lon Non with his own special troops to kill arrest and suppress anyone who dared to protest against his older brother’s dictatorial rules.
Lon Nol was a very incompetent leader who was increasingly dependent on the advice of soothsayers, monks and Buddhist mystics to the point that during a Khmer Rouge assault on Phnom Penh, he sprinkled a circular line of consecrated sand in order to defend the city. His regime was corrupt, more dictatorial than the regime he ousted and never took good care of the Khmer Republic ordinary soldiers (one of them is my old uncle who was killed mercilessly by the KR a little later after their victory in 1975) who were fighting courageously at the front lines against the Vietcongs, North Vietnamese and eventually the Khmer Rouges and the Khmer Vietminhs (our own brothers and sisters!).
I have nothing personally against Lon Nol; I am just wondering what would have happened to Cambodia if In Tam had been allowed and supported to be the president since he did win the election. Would In Tam shows enough strength, incorruptibility and leadership that the Americans would withdraw from Vietnam, but continued to help the Khmer Republic thus using Cambodian instead of Thailand as a front and divided line between the free world and the communists?
To me Sihanouk’s biggest mistakes are the appeal he made from Beijing calling on the Cambodians or his supporters to join the Khmer Rouges after he was ousted and the deal he made with Hun Sen after the CPP lost the 1993 UN-sponsored elections in order to keep his interests, but not necessarily Cambodia’s alive.
To Part 2
Pissed off
From Part 1:
I always attribute the reasons for Cambodia’s downfall and tragedy to her own elite for I have no ways of persuading Vietnam and Thailand to allow Cambodia to coexist as a friendly nation and controlling their ambitions over what remains of Cambodia. Issarak movement was created to fight the French presence in Cambodia and it was split into two groups later on, one becoming the Khmer Serei of Son Ngoc Thanh and the other becoming the Khmer Vietminhs later on trained and supported by Thailand plus America and Vietnam respectively. These two groups have no reason to exist after Cambodia’s independence from France in 1954. The Khmer Rouge group should not have existed either after the coup of 1970 if they were running away from Sihanouk’s police during the 60s. Is it ideology or personal ambition that made it impossible for all of the leaders to come forward and try to find a compromise knowing quite well that Cambodia cannot afford the division among her own children to the point that they would take it to a battlefield. Personal ambition and interests are what I presume to be the real cause of this division. This division continues to the present day simmering as we speak all in the name of protecting Cambodia. Cambodian elite should remember that time has come for each of them to start putting Cambodia’s interests before theirs or they will become a minority in their own land with Cambodia becoming a country in a fairly tale with its glorious and saddened past!
Perhaps what Dr. Naranhkiri Tith has in mind when he says that Cambodia does not have a leader of the same status of Mr. Nelson Mandela of South Africa or Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, is a reference to someone who can unify all Cambodian factions and eliminate as much as possible the division among the Cambodians on how the country should proceed as a nation in term of its domestic and foreign policies. Peaceful coexistence with Vietnam and Thailand, though reasonably hard to achieve, must always be the primary focus of Cambodia’s foreign policy and this policy can work with the help of friendly countries such as China, France and the international community.
Pissed off
Ah Dick-tator Dachor Hun Nalllllll..
2:38 AM
This part 1 is very good.
Look forward to seeing the next part.
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