Khmer National Hero Chea Thai - By Chandara Kin and Chea Ratha

https://www.box.com/s/qv71s7pr8557g3cofw3f

Lest you forget: Non-Communist Resistance Bulletin - January 1990

https://www.box.com/s/3c91621c2e266f12e2c1

On “Imperialism and the Khmer Rouge trials”

On “Imperialism and the Khmer Rouge trials”

20 December 2011
Letters from our readers
World Socialist Web Site

A point missed here is that the Communist Party of Cambodia had first adhered to more of a Menshevik strategy which argued that the victory of Vietnam would enable economic development that would benefit Cambodia in the long run, but that the goal of their party was not to seize power in Cambodia at this time. There was a major turnover in the Party in 1972-3 as the old line was discredited and a new party line came forward that Cambodia should carry out its own peasant revolution in national rivalry against Vietnam. It was this new faction which Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) led to power. That factional turnover within the Communist Party of Cambodia would not have occurred if the war not had been expanded from Vietnam into Cambodia. Instead the party line would have been more like the way that the Communist parties of France and Italy maintained "solidarity" with the Soviet Union after World War II but served as bourgeois labor parties in their own nations, except in Cambodia it would have been Vietnam playing the role of the USSR.

Patrick M

17 December 2011

Slide shows on the KPNLF

Dear Readers and Friends,

On the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the KPNLF, I invite you to review a slide show I created, The Face of the KPNLAF, at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsb0tyYLar8

Two earlier slide shows on the KPNLF may be viewed at:

KPNLF No Fire Like Passion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FowU4vPYsCc

Never Doubt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqs0bKxraYc

Sincerely yours,

Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.

Slide show on the Khmer People's National Liberation Front

Dear Countrymen and Friends,

I am inviting you to enjoy a slide show on the Khmer People's National Liberation Front and the Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forces (1980-1989) in honor of KPNLF/KPNLAF members, cadres, combatants, and officers.

Sincerely,

Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FowU4vPYsCc

Kong Siloah and the creation Molinaka, an anti-Vietnamese resistance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbg7dUBk3xU&feature=related

"Never Doubt" by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth

Dear Friends,

I invite you to take about two minutes to watch a slide show I've put together on Youtube titled "Never Doubt." The slides illustrate a chronology of military events in northwestern Cambodia between 1980 and 1989.

I was present as a member of the Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forces opposing Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and personally captured most events on camera. The background music is provided by Dr. Kang Kem.

I hope you find the presentation informative, the photos and the quotes inspirational, and will feel that the time spent watching the slides was worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqs0bKxraYc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Souvenir Photos of the Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forced (1981-1989)

All photos courtesy: Dr. A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

Click on each photo to zoom in

My home

Document confiscated from a Vietnamese soldier

Document and insignia confiscated from an enemy soldier [KI-Media note: Hun Xen claimed he and his men liberated Cambodia, well it looks like his men were Vietnamese after all, isn't it?]

Cambodian man carrying his relative while fleeing

Organization of the KPNLAF

How to deal with misunderstandings

I have no apologies for backing the people who opposed Vietnamese occupation of Khmer soil; nor any for joining the Non-Communist Resistance (1980-1989) to act against Vietnamese troops that installed a puppet regime in Cambodia and that controlled the country from 1979-1989.

My ideas of democracy, republican values and rule of law have never wavered.

Yet I served without complaint when Prince Sihanouk was president of the coalition that fought Vietnamese occupiers, and I served with Prince Sihanouk's son, Prince Ranariddh, in the joint military command, fighting the Vietnamese occupiers. My homeland's sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable.

August 18, 2010
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu said, "To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect."

To understand is to comprehend, to grasp the significance or the meaning of something intended or expressed by another. It requires an ability to imagine, relate, compare, identify, interpret and analyze the thinking of another.

An amusing remark attributed to Robert McCloskey of the U.S. State Department is relevant: "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

Everyone of us has misunderstood the intended meaning expressed by another -- who may not have expressed themselves well. Whatever causes it, misunderstanding creates friction, ends friendships, alienates people.

Lord knows, I have experienced both ends of misunderstanding. Thankfully there's usually less trouble when it is I who misunderstood! In my Asian culture, I was taught the adage "Silence is golden." I smiled to read Abraham Lincoln's advice, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

But it was my parents' upbringing of me that spared me much trouble when I misunderstood others. My mother, with an elementary school education, made sure I knew that humans argue and don't always accept each other's views; that I must learn to listen more than to speak, as maturity takes time. And my father, with a high school education, taught me only when different minds meet through humbly talking, listening and thinking does one's true vision emerge.

They both advised that I roll my tongue seven times before I speak; if I itched to argue, I should go eat a green sappy banana, which should spare me from fighting.

Both my parents died in 1975, when Pol Pot took over Cambodia. My mother passed away in my sister's arms . She could no longer endure the lack of food and demanding hard labor. My father was pulled away from the house and executed on the day Pol Pot's soldiers evacuated Phnom Penh city.

But their teachings have remained with me.

On the other hand, while I have learned enough how not to be unhappy and hurt as one who is sometimes misunderstood, I have found misunderstanding by others unnerving. Sometimes a failure to understand can be a symptom of ignorance or of a moral certainty of one's own view that is not supported by informed critical thinking. Such a tunnel view is not dissimilar to Pol Pot's uncompromising concept of what was "correct" thinking.

So, one misunderstands. Then one labels and brands. What follows is a categorization of the "we" and "they" groups and all that that entails.

Someone "anonymous" labeled me a Khmer "republican diehard" because of my criticism of Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk's foreign policy that resulted in 3,500 square kilometers of Khmer soil being occupied by Vietnamese Communist troops, who used the occupied land as a springboard for attacks against the Americans and their allies. As a result, the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Pol Pot gained Sihanouk's support and succeeded in overturning the Khmer Republic, all of which was a prelude to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia.

As a U.S.-trained political scientist, I studied U.S. history and learned from the U.S. forefathers' philosophies. It was from this foundation that I have embraced democracy, republican values and the rule of law. None of these are what Lon Nol's Khmer Republic experienced as it was thrown into the hell and fire of war.

I have no apologies for backing the people who opposed Vietnamese occupation of Khmer soil; nor any for joining the Non-Communist Resistance (1980-1989) to act against Vietnamese troops that installed a puppet regime in Cambodia and that controlled the country from 1979-1989.

My ideas of democracy, republican values and rule of law have never wavered.

Yet I served without complaint when Prince Sihanouk was president of the coalition that fought Vietnamese occupiers, and I served with Prince Sihanouk's son, Prince Ranariddh, in the joint military command, fighting the Vietnamese occupiers. My homeland's sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable.

When Khmer factions and their foreign backers spoke of "national reconciliation," I left the resistance for an academic career.

I continued my friendships with people I knew in the royalist movement, and people who worked with me in the resistance but who are now with the new regime, for one reason or another, and I debate only on public policies -- not on personalities.

I like what India's great political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, said: "I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others."

I am not a Buddhist, but Buddha's words I cherish: "You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together."

And his other words: "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so let us all be thankful."

Humility keeps our arrogance in check, and our understanding and misunderstanding in perspective.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Khmer Intelligence News 01 February 2010

KHMER INTELLIGENCE NEWS

01 February 2010

Thaksin obtained Cambodian citizenship in March 2009 (2)

Thailand's fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra obtained a Cambodian passport in the last week of March 2009. The Royal Decree granting Thaksin Khmer citizenship was signed off by CPP and Senate President Chea Sim in his capacity then as Acting Head of State. King Norodom Sihamoni had been “advised” to unexpectedly but discretely leave Cambodia for France in that last week of March 2009 in order to keep secret the CPP decision to grant Khmer citizenship to Thaksin.

Former anti-Vietnamese Resistance soldiers confront Thai Army at Preah Vihear (2)

The Hun Sen government has deliberately selected former anti-Vietnamese Resistance soldiers – from the Khmer Rouge, Funcinpec and Son Sann’s KPNLF – to confront the Thai Army in the defense of Preah Vihear Temple. The Vietnamese-inspired CPP policy is to eliminate all Khmer soldiers who fought against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1980’s, especially the Khmer Rouge warriors who continued fighting the Hun Sen government until 1998. The objective of this policy is to prevent any possible armed rebellion against the current regime in the future and to turn a “completely new page” in the relations between Cambodia and Vietnam.

A long history of border encroachments by Vietnam in Svay Rieng province (1)

Even opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who pulled out a so-called border post in Svay Rieng province last October, may not know that there had been continuous attempts by Vietnam over the last century to encroach on Cambodian territory, especially in Svay Rieng province.

- In 1930, under French colonial rule, King Sisowath Monivong (1875-1941), fearing and wanting to contain Vietnamese encroachments, ordered on-the-spot land measurements, border delineation and mapping of that part of Svay Rieng province where Sam Rainsy pulled out the so-called border post. The concerned area was around Koh Khsan (later on known as Koh Kban) in Chantrea district. See the 12 February 1930 Royal Declaration at http://tinyurl.com/ycg2den

- In 1986, under the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, Msah Lah, a courageous Deputy Minister who was suspicious about border encroachments by Vietnam, requested national press agency SPK to print aerial photos of the Svay Rieng border post plantings. There is also a telling report by Sao Samuth, Chairman of the Svay Rieng Border Subcommittee. Subsequently, Sao Samuth was reportedly murdered in 1987 by the Vietnamese for being patriotic on the boundary affairs. See CPP secret documents at http://tinyurl.com/yhh68fh

- In 1999, under the current Kingdom of Cambodia, Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) Commander-in-Chief General Ke Kim Yan wrote a report to Prime Minister Hun Sen indicating that Vietnam had been surreptitiously and illegally annexing stretches of Cambodia's territories including in Svay Rieng province. The report details several cases where Vietnamese civilians protected by armed soldiers or militiamen grabbed land belonging to Cambodian farmers and moved border markers well inside Cambodian territory. Read the full report at http://tinyurl.com/yjypg2s

Cambodia is committing suicide as a nation because of her inadequate handling of border affairs: Norodom Sihanouk (1)

In a 16 March 2005 statement King-Father Norodom Sihanouk condemned the continuous border encroachment by the Vietnamese authorities. He mentioned the case of Svay Rieng province where opposition leader Sam Rainsy uprooted last October a so-called border post to defend Cambodian farmers who were victims of land grab associated with border encroachment. The King-Father specified that Vietnam had recently created "new borders" to her benefit. In conclusion, he accused the Vietnamese-subservient Hun Sen government of pushing Cambodia to commit suicide as a nation because of its weak stance on the border issue.

Full text of the royal statement in French with unofficial translation in Khmer at http://tinyurl.com/yk99v3d

Both Cambodian and Vietnamese authorities recognize their “mistake” on border post location (2)

On 27 January the Svay Rieng provincial court sentenced opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two Cambodian farmers to jail term for uprooting on 25 October 2009 a border post (#185) in Koh Kban Kandal village, in Samraong commune, Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. However, following the strong evidence presented by the Sam Rainsy Party at http://tinyurl.com/yeaoxyf with further explanation at http://tinyurl.com/yk5zbtt, both the Cambodian and Vietnamese authorities are now obliged to recognize that the so-called border post uprooted by Sam Rainsy had been planted at the wrong place. Actually, it was planted well inside Cambodia’s territory, at a distance of nearly 300 meters from the legal/official border with Vietnam.

Therefore, that so-called border post (#185) was not a real and legal one, meaning Sam Rainsy and the two farmers have committed no crime. Realizing their “mistake,” Vietnamese border officials on 16 November removed nearby “border” posts (#184, 186 and 187) and took them back to Vietnam, leading the Sam Rainsy Party to claim a “political and moral victory for Cambodia.” Read the SRP statement at http://tinyurl.com/ye2o6w2

Profile of the two farmers currently in jail (1)

Who are the two Cambodian farmers who, alongside Sam Rainsy, were sentenced on 27 January by the Svay Rieng provincial court to one year in prison? They are Meas Srey, female, 38, and Prum Chea, male, 41. They have been living with their families, for generations, in Samraong commune bordering Vietnam. They are victims of land grab associated with border encroachment. Actually, their only crime was their courage to publicly denounce injustice while standing next to Sam Rainsy on Meas Srey’s rice field on 25 October.

Meas Srey and Prum Chea were actually spokespersons for several dozens farmer families in Samraong commune alone who have lost, or are in the process of losing, their rice fields to Vietnam because “border” posts have been moved deeper and deeper into Cambodian territory.

Please listen to the two victims by clicking at http://tinyurl.com/yfmakb5

[End]

From honoring those who fought the prescursor of the CPP ... to honoring the CPP itself: Bravo!?!?

Norodom Sihanouk pays an official visit to the
Sihanoukian National Army (ANS) in 1988
ANS base No. 1, Cambodia
Friday, July 1, 1988

Photo: NorodomSihanouk.info

After taking a bullet in the helmet, he shot his enemy and disrupted Taliban ambush

Sarun Sar
U.S. Army / Silver Star

By Kevin Maurer
AmericanValor.net

He is no stranger to war.

Sarun Sar’s first combat experience came in his native Cambodia, where he fought with anti-Vietnamese guerrillas. But when the Vietnamese invaded, his family was split up. His father died in prison, his brother was executed for smuggling weapons for anti-government guerrillas and his mother and two other brothers died from starvation.

Sar ended up on the western side of the country, where he was wounded several times and eventually sent to a refugee camp in Thailand.

There, he met up with his older sister and eventually moved to the United States. Sar gained his citizenship while in the Army and has deployed all over the world with Special Forces to places such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Africa, Colombia and Afghanistan.

In the latter country, he would distinguish himself again.

On March 5, 2005, Sar could see the Taliban fighters running from the village as his Black Hawk helicopter touched down.

“Follow me,” Sar screamed to his 7th Special Forces Group teammates before jumping to the ground, hoping to cut the enemy off.

He could hear radio reports about the team’s other helicopter taking fire as he rushed up the snowy mountain in Paktika province along the Pakistan border. He saw several Taliban running toward some woods. Another ran into a house.

Sar reached the house, throwing himself against a wall near the door and waiting for the rest of his team.

But “I didn’t feel anyone tap me on the shoulder,” said Sar, who was the Special Forces team sergeant, the most senior enlisted soldier.

Looking back down the hill, he saw that his teammates were pinned down by enemy fire. It was just Sar and a medic trapped at the house, far from their unit.

The squat house was made of thick mud and rock with a small door cut out. As Sar peeked inside, thick smoke hung inside the room. He barreled through the small, low opening, gun at the ready, and was halfway in when the flashlight on his M-4 rifle illuminated the face of a Taliban fighter.

The enemy’s muzzle flash lit up the darkness — three times.

Two shots missed. But the third hit the edge of Sar’s Kevlar helmet at his forehead, the force throwing him back out the door.

“I will never forget that little flash I saw,” Sar said. “He was waiting. It felt like I was hit in the head with a hammer.”

Dazed, he rolled back outside and started screaming, “I’m hit! I’m hit!” to the medic. The medic searched for a wound, but the bullet hadn’t penetrated Sar’s helmet. Sar pulled a flash-bang stun grenade and threw it into the room before he re-entered the house and killed the Taliban fighter.

His charge up the mountain had disrupted the Taliban ambush and prevented his team from getting bogged down.

Maj. John Litchfield, the Special Forces team leader at the time, said Sar’s actions also inspired the team to push up the hill.

“The rest of the team was under fire and pretty well pinned down,” Litchfield said. “Human nature takes over, and you start clawing for a piece of ground. Sar did the opposite of that. We certainly wouldn’t have achieved the goal in the same manner, and some of us could have been severely wounded.”

Soon afterward, the Special Forces team cleared the other huts in the village and rounded up a huge cache of eemy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, bomb-making materials and explosives. Sar and another soldier were the only wounded Americans.

Looking back to the time on that mountain in 2005, Sar said he wouldn’t change what he did:

“That is how we do things. I would still go in the house. Next time, the whole team would follow behind me.”

Insurgents celebrate legacy

In a photo displayed during Friday’s ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, Son Sann, the group’s founder and president, speaks with villagers inside its liberated zone, Sok San village, Battambang province, in 1985. (Photo by: Sebastian Strangio)

Monday, 12 October 2009
Sebastian Strangio and Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Now there are Vietnamese everywhere because slaves of the Vietnamese took control of the country ... Without the resistance, Cambodia would be wearing a Vietnamese hat.

Veterans of the KPNLF mark their 30th anniversary, saying their nationalism and fight against communism and corruption remain relevant to the Kingdom.

THREE decades on from the founding of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF) in the remote jungles of Battambang province, veteran resistance fighters say the group’s controversial legacy – and that of its president and founder Son Sann – remain relevant in a changing Cambodia.

One of the main resistance factions to emerge along the Thai border following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime by Vietnamese troops in January 1979, the KPNLF prompted controversy for its role in the decade-long civil war against the Hanoi-backed government in Phnom Penh.

During a ceremony at the Son Sann memorial stupa in Kandal province’s Kien Svay district on Friday, a dwindling group of KPNLF veterans gathered to reflect on their experiences in the resistance and promote the continuing pertinence of the faction’s goals.

Svay Ngov, a soldier who lost both of his legs in the service of the KPNLF, said the sacrifice was worthwhile in the pursuit of the group’s aims.

“I made sacrifices for the sake of my conscience, which was to fight against the foreigners who invaded Cambodia, fight against the Khmer Rouge and fight against corruption in society,” he said in a speech at the ceremony.

“These three core issues remain unresolved.”

Son Soubert, Son Sann’s son and an active member of the movement, said it played an integral role in establishing the 1993 Constitution and helped usher in the current system of multiparty democracy.

“We fulfilled our aim of bringing about national reconciliation and, even if we have never ruled the country, we still continue to play a role in promoting democracy,” he said on Sunday.

Controversial role
The KPNLF was established on October 9, 1979, by a small group of nationalists, “white” Khmers and officials from the Sihanouk and Lon Nol regimes, unified in their opposition to communism and to the presence of Vietnamese forces in the country.

Recruiting its support from the flood of refugees seeking sanctuary in its bases along the Thai border, the KPNLF – with support from the United States, Europe and China – provided social services and waged a continuing insurgency against the Phnom Penh government.

The Cold War calculus of the age, however, created strange bedfellows. In June 1982, Son Sann entered into a coalition – the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) – with the royalist Funcinpec and remnants of the Khmer Rouge, an association that even today prompts controversy.

General Dien Del, the KPNLF’s former general chief of staff who was present at the founding of the group in 1979 and travelled to China to procure its first shipment of military aid, said the group’s aim was to act as a bulwark against the “Vietnamisation” of the country during the occupation of the 1980s.

Despite the Vietnamese military withdrawal from the country in 1989, however, Dien Del said, its influence remained.

“Even if the foreign troops withdrew, civilians remained and supported the Phnom Penh government,” he said, referring to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) – the successor to the communist regime of the 1980s.

“Now there are Vietnamese everywhere because slaves of the Vietnamese took control of the country.”

When asked whether the Vietnamese deserved any credit for overthrowing Pol Pot, Dien Del stood firm.

“Not at all,” he replied. “They were an occupation force. Without the resistance, Cambodia would be wearing a Vietnamese hat.”

Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, denied the charge, saying that by throwing in its lot with Pol Pot, the KPNLF had squandered its credibility.

“After we rescued the people from Pol Pot and stopped Pol Pot from returning to the country, the [KPNLF] and Funcinpec set up an alliance with the Khmer Rouge,” he said, emphasising the CPP’s independence from Vietnam.

“[We] have never taken a foreigner as our boss. Those criticising us should check and balance their historical background.”

Despite the controversy of its anti-Vietnamese nationalism, old resistance fighters said their animating principles – to resist foreign occupation, prevent a return to the “genocidal” Khmer Rouge regime and fight corruption – have been undiminished by time.

“Today, we find that all of these principles are still critical,” said Pol Ham, who joined the KPNLF in 1979 and served as the head of its information service from 1989 until 1991.

“We have contributed a lot to the liberation of our country and for [its] reconstruction.”

Noble end
After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1991, the KPNLF collapsed after its civilian and military wings split into separate political parties to contest the 1993 elections.

Despite the party’s ignominious end, however, others said Son Sann was still able to play an instrumental role in the peace process.

“When people were repatriated from the border, the seeds of human rights and democracy were created inside the country,” said Lao Mong Hay, a researcher for the Asian Human Rights Commission who served as an aide to Son Sann from 1988 to 1992, in an interview in February.

“Unfortunately, because Son Sann was not successful at the elections, we could not translate the ideas that we cherished into concrete actions.”

A view from the outside

Abdul Gaffar Peang-Meth, once a resistance fighter during the 1980s, now teaches at the University of Guam.

Monday, 29 June 2009
Written by SEBASTIAN STRANGIO
The Phnom Penh Post

A CHIEF EXECUTIVE WHO HOLDS EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL POWERS IS A TYRANT AND AN OPPRESSOR.

Former resistance fighter Abdul Gaffar Peang-Meth talks about his past and Cambodia's state of affairs in the post-Khmer Rouge era.

Educated in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, Abdul Gaffar Peang-Meth returned to Cambodia in 1980 to join the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) - one of the three factions resisting the Vietnamese occupation during the 1980s. After unsuccessfully running for election with the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993, he returned to academic life and now teaches political science at the University of Guam. In an interview with the Post, he reflects on his time in the resistance and the current state of Cambodian politics.

Many of your old colleagues from the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) are still living in Cambodia today. What made you decide to leave the country permanently?
"Permanently" is an eternity, contrary to what Lord Buddha teaches: There's no such thing. Cambodians should live in Cambodia, and I respect the different reasons my ex-KPNLF colleagues have made to do so. My heart goes out to those who have no choice but to endure oppression. Whether under the Khmer monarchy, the Khmer Republic or the KPNLF, I believe unless a person is permitted and encouraged to think freely and critically, to innovate, to develop to his or her full potential, no endeavor s/he is involved in, whether commercial or political, is going to succeed. I don't see Phnom Penh's sky as hospitable to my way of thinking. Anyone can help the nation from anywhere.

From your vantage point overseas, how do you see the current trajectory of Cambodia's development?
There's no question that Cambodia today, with more roads, bridges, modern buildings, is more appealing than under the Khmer Rouge. But the rich get richer while nearly half of the population lives below the poverty level, and many live off the city's dumping grounds. The current regime's disdainful lack of good governance hurts the people most, and points to one direction: an authoritarian one-party rule legitimised by elections, which the international community had dubbed below international standard, but foreign donors let pass. How many fewer threats, how much less intimidation make the elections "more free and fair"? Does a government that sells natural resources for private gain, evicts the weak and underprivileged from their homes and land for development by the wealthy, employs lawsuits against its citizens and lifts the immunity of lawmakers whose words and opinions aren't in agreement with it, represent progress toward a more democratic future? A chief executive who holds executive, legislative, and judicial powers is a tyrant and an oppressor.

How do you perceive the role of the international community in Cambodia?
The role of the international community and the donor countries should be to ensure the implementation of the 1991 Paris Accords on Cambodia - in which the world invested $2 billion. It's their failure to implement the stipulations in the accords that has led to Cambodia's current situation. They cannot hope to build a sustainable economy and a democratic system in Cambodia by turning a blind eye to abuses of power and rampant corruption, when by so doing the current one-party rule is allowed to become further entrenched.

Do you think the Khmer Rouge tribunal - in light of corruption allegations - can bring justice to Cambodian survivors of the KR regime?
There cannot be justice, nor national reconciliation and healing, when responsibility for the brutality visited upon an estimated 1.7 million victims is assigned to only five officials while several thousand other perpetrators are walking free today. Unless the victims are satisfied that the accused have been accorded their due, the KRT is just a sham and talk of judicial corruption is a distraction. Some Cambodians have challenged the world community to establish a witness protection program to allow living witnesses to appear and talk freely and without fear.

You come from a Cham family that was closely involved in Democrat Party politics in pre-revolutionary Cambodia. How did this experience inform your political views?
My father socialised me politically beginning in my elementary school days to democratic principles and concepts. He introduced me to some figures in the Democratic Party such as Pach Chhoeun and Svay So. I read the Pracheatheptei (Democrat) newspaper, attended political campaign rallies. Personal and national experiences also shaped my political views. When my parents' financial fortunes crumbled, our house was sold to then Siem Reap governor Dap Chhuon, who allowed us to stay in the lower level of the house.

But Dap Chhuon, who was implicated in a plot with South Vietnamese officers against the royal government, was shot and killed and Lon Nol's soldiers surrounded the house, placing us under house arrest. The morning after, our residence was searched. Old copies of the Pracheatheptei and a copy of the Pracheachon (The People) newspaper in the house were confiscated, and we were instructed to read only the ruling party's Sangkum newspaper. That experience has affected me throughout my life.

What led you to support Lon Nol's Khmer Republican Regime during the early 1970s?
Being Cambodian-born of Cham descent has caused me to be particularly sensitive to the regional Vietnamisation and annexation of territories by Vietnam. When the Communist Vietnamese forces occupied some 3,500 square kilometres of Khmer soil from the northeast down to the sea in the south as sanctuary from the war with the free South Vietnamese and their American allies, Cambodia's neutrality was violated and my support for those who rose up against the Vietnamese forces on Khmer soil was natural. It may have been foolish for a Khmer David to confront the Vietnamese Goliath at a time when the Americans were looking for a way to disengage, but opting to trade national territorial sovereignty and territorial integrity because the political wind appeared to favour the Communists was not in the nation's interest. Khmers who stood opposed to the Vietnamese occupying forces espoused republican ideals. In March 1970 many who took on the republican cause, many who gave their lives in that struggle, did so not because of personal allegiance to [coup leaders] Lon Nol or [Prince] Sirik Matak, but because they believed in democratic principles.

Whatever happened to the "republican era"? Life evolves, political pendulums swing. There is no history, someone said, only interpreters of historical events. For different reasons, old supporters of republicanism have been silent. But there are young Khmers today who believe in the republican ideals, appreciate and recognise the work of those who have died for human integrity and republicanism. Some young Khmers have picked up the flag of republicanism and are moving forward. I supported the republican ideals and still do.

Why did you join the KPNLF after the fall of the Khmer Rouge?
I seek a meaningful life through serving a cause in which I believe. The KPNLF was created in 1979 to oppose the Maoist Khmer Rouge's return to power and to oblige the Vietnamese to withdraw from Khmer land. After the collapse of the Khmer Republic in 1975 and news of death and destruction by the Khmer Rouge emerged, I and a group of Khmer nationalists in America's East Coast formed an anti-Khmer Rouge committee. I wrote articles, translated articles into Khmer and English and mimeographed the bulletins for distribution. The bulletin, called Conscience, became Cambodian Appeal and after the KPNLF was proclaimed, I joined the group in the field, followed by some colleagues.

INTERVIEW BY SEBASTIAN STRANGIO

KPNLF commemoration

Prince Norodom Ranariddh inspects a monument to KPNLF resistance fighters Thursday in Kandal province. (Photo by: BRENDAN BRADY)
Son Soubert (left), son of the Front's founder, prays as Ranariddh lays a wreath on a monument to the movement's fallen soldiers. (Photo by: Brendan Brady)

Friday, 06 March 2009
Written by Brendan Brady and Kouth Sophak Chakrya
The Phnom Penh Post

"Vietnamese troops did not invade Cambodia ... They came to help Cambodia from the Pol Pot regime - we should be thankful to the Vietnamese." - CPP MP "Chom Chea Yap" aka "Cheam Yeap"

Former border resistance leaders stand by antagonism towards Vietnamese.

A WHO'S who of anti-Vietnamese leaders of the 1980s gathered at a stupa in Kandal province Thursday to commemorate resistance fighters who had died as part of the movement's effort to expel the foreign power.

The Khmer National Liberation Front (KPNLF) was one of the main resistance groups to emerge along the Thai border following the fall of the
Khmer Rouge by Vietnamese forces and their subsequent administrative takeover of Cambodia.

Former KPNLF army and political leaders inaugurated a monument with inscriptions of the names of resistance fighters who died between 1979 and 1991 at a ceremony in Kien Svay district.

Chuor Kim Meng, who had been a lieutenant general for the movement's military wing, said the resistance helped push the Vietnamese out and forced the local officials it had installed to accept multiparty democracy.

"If not for these fighters, Vietnam may have continued to occupy Cambodia," he said.

Dien Del, former chief of staff of the group's army, said the event "preserve the memory of those who died expelling the Vietnamese occupiers".

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the guest of honour, praised the resistance. "I have never forgotten its fighters who died," he said. He, too, described the Vietnamese troops in Cambodia at that time as "invaders" and "occupiers".

While there was no official condemnation from the government, the commemoration should have proved controversial as the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) evolved from the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (PRPK), the regime that governed Cambodia under the control of Vietnamese forces.

KR alliance necessary

Son Soubert, son of Son Sann, founder and former president of the KPNLF and himself a participant in the movement's administration, said he had sent a letter of invitation to Prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate President Chea Sim and Deputy Prime Minister Sok An. Only Chea Sim responded, saying he had other obligations.

Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, criticised the KPNLF for characterizing the Vietnamese as enemies.

"Vietnamese troops did not invade Cambodia," he told the Post by phone. "They came to help Cambodia from the Pol Pot regime - we should be thankful to the Vietnamese."

The exit of Vietnamese forces in 1989 came about not from resistance pressure from the border but because the PRPK was ready to rule on its own, he contended.

Opposition party representatives present at the ceremony, however, insisted the Front's cause was righteous and attributed the exit of Vietnam to its efforts.

"They fought for our freedom and sovereignty - that represents Khmer nationalism at its purest," said Human Rights Party President Kem Sokha.

Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Son Chhay had been the KPNLF's representative in southern Australia, where he was based then. "Without the resistance from the border, we would not have had the Paris Peace Accords," he said.

Nationalism first

The KPNLF started in 1979, recruiting some of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees seeking sanctuary along the border with Thailand.

Its key figures had held prominent positions in the administrations of Sihanouk and right-wing general Lon Nol, and were unified in their opposition to communism and to the presence of Vietnamese forces in the country.

The Front was seen by the US and other Western allies as the most reliably anti-communist and pro-Western group in Cambodia.

In its effort to drive out the Vietnamese, the Front struck an awkward alliance with remnants of the Khmer Rouge. In 1982 the KPNLF entered the tripartite Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea.

The new coalition included the Party of Democratic Kampuchea, a splinter group of the defeated Khmer Rouge led by Khieu Samphan, and the royalist resistance movement known as Funcinpec, and represented Cambodia at the United Nations.

For the former leaders of the Front, the alliance with their ideological counterparts was a necessary evil.

"Son Sann always said the country is more important than the party or faction," said Pol Ham, who had been the Front's Information Minister.

"We hated the Khmer Rouge, but at that time we had to prioritise - and the foreign occupiers were the first enemy. We formed a coalition but kept our own identity."

Son Soubert was adamant the Front had never "joined" the Khmer Rouge.

"We were forced to enter a temporary coalition to achieve our goals," he said.

Funcinpec Senator Sabu Bacha, a former general of the Front's army, said the dire circumstances required divisions among Cambodians be put aside "so first we could expel foreign troops from our soil".