Hun Sen’s regime: The best of the worst

Re: Hun Sen: We differ from other countries 

Do not compare Cambodia to Israel, Germany, Japan or Korea.....

By Anonymous

In Israel, in Germany, in Japan or in Korea... there were no killings of people who happened to wear glasses or had some education during the war. But Cambodia under KR alone, we experienced this tragedy. Please do not lessen KR crime in destroying the country, especially the human resources! Cambodia's economic development is not just Hun Sen’s job alone! All Khmers in Cambodia and the Cambodian Diaspora are all responsible for the country’s progress. Besides, how much money Israel, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan got annually from the US after WWII and how much rich Jewish communities outside Israel contributed to their country intellectually and economically? Please do not think that Khmers are not good because we are not as brilliant as Jews, or Japanese or Americans or Germans? I should ask myself what I did or I did not do to help my country so far?

5 March 2013 1:22am

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Hun Sen’s regime: The second worst regime of the world

By Khmerization

I would like to thank 1:22am for engaging in a sensible debate regarding the merit, or the lack of it, of Mr. Hun Sen’s rule in comparison to other regimes around the world.

I would now like to respond to a few points raised by you.

Israel, Germany, Japan or Korea have excelled in all fields in less than 20 years after emerging from the destruction of wars not because there were no killings of their people, but because these countries have leaders who were smart and patriotic and who loved their countries to death. Can we say the same about the leaders of Cambodia today?

In fact, 6 million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi regime during World War II and Israel was created from scratch by the survivors of the holocaust. The rest of the survivors, who chose not to return to Israel, were scattered around the world.

In Germany, more than a million Germans were killed during the bombings and invasion of the Allied forces at the dying days of World War II. In Japan no less than 500,000 Japanese died during World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In Korea, no less than a million were killed or died during the Korean War that ended in 1953. In China, no less than 20 million Chinese were killed during the Chinese revolution and the fighting between Mao Zedong’s and Chiang Kai-shek’s forces that ended in 1949, and the destruction of infrastructure was immeasurable, yet China has emerged as a third super-power after America and the Soviet Union in less than 20 years. Now, China is the world’s second biggest economy and will overtake America as the number spot in less than 15 years time.

As far as the history goes, not much money was pumped into Japan or Israel, South Korea or Taiwan. In fact, because Japan and Germany were the losers of World War II, therefore there were demands for war reparations to the victors.

In Europe, there was the Marshall Plan, in which a substantial sum of money was pumped in, but at the end of the day it was the leaders of those countries who had made their countries prosperous and politically stable.

What about Cambodia? Cambodia was at the mercy of the international community in 1991 when the UN sent 20,000 troops and administrators and more than 2 billion dollars to help revive the peace process and, ultimately, the economy of Cambodia. After the UN left in 1993, around $1.5 billion dollars from the donor countries was pumped in every year to help revive the infrastructure, the economy, the democratic process, the judiciary and healthcare, but 20 years on Cambodia is still pretty poor and the population still suffered human rights abuses and the democratic process is going backward instead of going forward.

I do not believe that the reason Cambodia is a poor country today is because we Khmers are not “brilliant” as the Jews, the Japanese, the Germans or the Americans. On the contrary, we have Angkor Wat and the Khmer Empire to prove to the world that we are smart and brilliant. The fact that we are poor today is because we always have leaders who are not brilliant or who are selfish, and Mr. Hun Sen is one of many examples.

You have raised the point that the rich and educated Jews around the world have returned and helped revitalise Israel’s economy and its reconstruction. Can we say the same with the Cambodian Diaspora? The answer is no because Hun Sen did not welcome them.

There are estimated 1.7 million Cambodians living in the West and millions more are working in neighbouring and sympathetic countries. The Cambodians in the West have sent approximately $500 million dollars per year to help resuscitate the Cambodian economy. The Cambodian overseas workers would have sent millions also.

I am in total support of you when you said “Cambodia[‘s] economic development is not just Hun Sen’s job alone! All Khmers in Cambodia and the Cambodian Diaspora are all responsible for the country’s progress”. I would like Mr. Hun Sen to think the same as you and allowed all educated Khmers to contribute without fearing of retributions, harassment or imprisonment. But the fact is he wanted to hold leadership and political monopoly.

In fact, many educated Khmers, some even with Ph.Ds, have returned to help Cambodia, but they were either harassed, chased back to the West or were jailed because they have tried to right his wrongs. If only Hun Sen accepted them or allowed them to utilise their skills to their full potential without fears and intimidation like in their adopted countries, their contributions would have helped Cambodia significantly and made a huge difference to the Khmer society. Today, Cambodia is run by the remnants of the Khmer Rouge leaders who did not even finish primary school and some of them cannot even read or write. One wonders why Cambodia is not going forward.

It is regrettable that Mr. Hun Sen always likes to compare his regime to the Khmer Rouge regime, which was the worst regime in the world. In this sense, Mr. Hun Sen is trying to tell the world that his regime is the second worst regime in the world, that is to say it is the best of the worst.

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Pol Pot is not the only cause of Cambodia's economic woes

Anonymous said... 

Dear Brother or sister,

The big problem of economy deadlock of Cambodia is due to the bad image of our Cambodian leaders and especially our routine corruption behaviors.

I used to think like some of you guys that Pol Pot regimes killed all or destroyed our Human Resources. It's true in some points. However, as a neutral person, I don't think that Pol Pot Regime is the only cause of our slow economy development.

Besides Pol Pot Regime, there are many things that block Cambodia to move forward:

1. Cambodia leader has or had a communist leader and his image was not good. Foreigners look down on Cambodians. It started from our leaders and down to the lower levels.

2. Cambodian economy have economic deadlock. We cannot export our products to the neighboring countries because those of the neighboring countries are the exporting countries. Our products cannot compete with the neighboring countries because most of the direct/indirect materials are imported from the neighboring countries. More importantly, the corruptions are still existing everywhere. We cannot reduce the gasoline price. Therefore, we need to sell at higher prices than the neighbors.

3. The Cambodian people are raised differently from people in the neighboring countries. Most Cambodian people studied Business, Management, Finance, Economy and Law. In the neighboring countries, people studied engineering, manufacturing, electronic, computer sciences, medicine, nursing and social development so on.

4. Most Cambodians in overseas who are highly educated have never wanted to return to Cambodia. They don't trust the stability of Cambodian economy and low-paid jobs.

5. Most graduate students who got scholarships to study overseas tried to look for Cambodian-Americans people to marry in order to stay there. Most people, who cannot find high-paid jobs in the US/AUS/Canada or people cannot find someone to marry, will return to Cambodia.

6. We chose the wrong superpower. China is the biggest exporting country in the world. China exported, not only industrial materials, but also agricultural materials. Therefore, China can only help to accept some of our exported products. However, if we chose the US or other developed countries whose strong economies were based on high technology and industry, the big industrial country, we will have more chances to export our product and attract billionaire investors to Cambodia.

Overall, to stabilize our country, both economically and politically, we should change the leader (we can choose another leader whose image are good in the public eyes from any current government or opposing parties). Especially, we should eliminate corruptions which are the roots of all the problems of Cambodian development.

Even though we probably cannot change our democratic/communist regime, I am happy to see P.M. Hun Sen resign and let one of his educated sons or others to be our leader. At least, we can reduce the bad image. Optimistically, we can reduce more corruptions.

5 March 2013 7:10 pm

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Cambodia is 20 years behind Vietnam and 35 years behind Thailand

Anonymous said... 

The issue of avoiding the comparison between Cambodia to her neighbors was nothing new. Since 1945, Cambodia has been always 15 years behind Thailand in term of infrastructure development- 8 years behind South Vietnam in term of economic developments and 20 years in term of military might because the US poured billions of dollars to build the South Vietnamese National Army, the 4th strongest army in the world in 1968-1975 and peaked at 1971. Cambodia was equal to Laos in 1970, but now is 3 years behind Laos in term of Gross Domestic Capita Income.

Now Cambodia has been further 20 years behind Vietnam's economy and 35 years behind Thailand, not to mention military might.

Cambodia has been always behind regardless now or/and in the past...And never will catch up but can get a close gap.

6 March 2013 1:12 am 

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Hun Sen and Pol Pot are two of the same monsters

Anonymous said... 

Even Hun Sen compares his Cambodia with Pol Pot's  Cambodia, his is worse than Pol Pot'.

These two monsters was and is Khmers' killers more or less but Pol Pot had kept & protected Cambodia's territorial integrity and natural resources .

Khmers did not inherit debts from Pol Pot . Hun Sen has started from zero debts to $10 billion in debts, from big Cambodia to a smaller one . Only his family's and his cronies' wealthhave been progressed .

6 March 2013 10:35 am