Khmer Intelligence News - 13 February 2010

Raoul Jennar

KHMER INTELLIGENCE NEWS

13 February 2010

Foreign experts versus Khmer scholars (1)

There are some arrogant foreign experts who pretend to know the Khmer language better than the native Khmers themselves. They give their own interpretation to some Khmer words and sometimes invent so-called Khmer expressions that the Khmers themselves ignore. For instance, they used to frequently call former Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok, “The Butcher,” whereas such an expression doesn’t exist in Khmer in such a context. More recently, they pretend that the word “yuon” used by the Khmer people to commonly call the Vietnamese, is a pejorative or even a racist term. They are actually unable or unwilling to make the difference between “pejorative” and “politically incorrect” under the current Vietnamese-friendly regime. They ignore Khmer geography and culture, not being aware of the existence of very old Phums (villages) such as Banteay Yuon (Yuon citadel) and very old Khmer sayings such as “Siem min chaol kbuon, Yuon min chaol put.”

Fortunately, a number of independent and respected Khmer polyglot scholars have recently written to counter those foreign experts and set the record straight at http://tinyurl.com/ya6t9u4

Raoul Jennar, the longest-serving foreign mercenary in Cambodia (1)

Belgian-born Raoul M. Jennar is one of the foreign experts described above. But he is also a specialist in disinformation who has been selling his services to the Hun Sen regime for more than twenty years. In order to hide the real nature of his mission, he has worn several hats, from NGO official to historian to political analyst to journalist to Tribunal (ECCC) expert to government adviser. He was the main contributor to The Vision, a lousy and ephemeral pro-CPP newspaper in the late 1990’s which was instrumental in the disinformation and manipulation of the Western, especially French-speaking, public opinion. His contract at the ECCC was not renewed because of his support for the Hun Sen government view that only five former Khmer Rouge leaders -- those who are currently in jail -- should be prosecuted so as to prevent other former Pol Pot colleagues -- who are now high-ranking CPP leaders -- from being investigated and possibly prosecuted. He finally ends up as an official adviser to the Hun Sen government while being a regular contributor, under several fictitious names, to the French-language newspaper Cambodge Soir Hebdo.

CPP secret document showing Vietnamese army remaining in Cambodia (1)

This 7 May 1991 confidential document shows a CPP government (“State of Cambodia”) decision to pay Vietnamese soldiers -- including “experts” with the rank of army generals -- who stayed behind in Cambodia after their much-publicised September 1989 withdrawal. It is obvious that significant elements of Hanoi’s army were still in Cambodia after they had claimed they had withdrawn from our country. The United Nations (UNTAC) could not ignore this fact during the transitional period (1991-1993).

Read the document in Khmer at http://tinyurl.com/y8aqbc5

CPP secret document showing Cambodia dealing with border issue under orders from Hanoi (1)

This 2 December 1988 Report of 10-Year-Work of the “State of Cambodia” Cabinet, pages 11-12, relates to boundary work. It shows that the Hun Sen government was not ready and incapable of dealing with boundary demarcation with Vietnam; yet they were forced to do so. The Border Committee was actually led by a Vietnamese "expert" (or “chumneanhkar”). This “expert” forced the Cambodian government to start working on boundary when Cambodia was not even ready to do that.

Read the document in Khmer at http://tinyurl.com/yl5bjrl

Royal Palace source confirms King’s surreptitious departure from Cambodia on 23 March 2009 (2)

A source from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh confirms that King Norodom Sihamoni was pressured by CPP Royal Palace Minister Kong Sam Ol into unexpectedly and discreetly leaving Cambodia on 23 March 2009. He then went to France for a week. At the same time, a CPP source confirms that the Cambodian government was in a hurry to secretly grant Cambodian citizenship to Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. But even the King must not know about this CPP top-secret decision. The corresponding Royal Decree was then signed off by CPP Chairman Chea Sim in his capacity as Acting Head of State in the absence of the King.

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