PM Hun Sen's party heading for third electoral victory

The Cambodian People's Party, which has been in power for 29 consecutive years, is expected to broaden its majority in Sunday's general election, against a backdrop of a booming economy and heightened nationalist feelings.

Friday 25 July 2008
By Marie Valla / C.Payen
France 24

“In Cambodia, if you don’t have Hun Sen’s signature, nothing gets done” - Hun Sen

Eight million Cambodians are voting Sunday in a multi-party election that’s expected to consolidate the 29-year-long rule of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen over the national parliament.

“People can say whatever they want,” Hun Sen told FRANCE 24 earlier this month. “What matters is whether people like Hun Sen or not.”

Hun Sen, a lapsed communist and astute politician who has been in power since 1985, has taken credit for the country’s pacification after the civil war that followed the fall of the Khmer Rouge. He can also boast a good economic record with growth rates reportedly averaging 11% over the last few years.

The IMF recently acknowledged Cambodia’s good performance, Olivier Guillard, an Asia specialist at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) pointed.

“Although it will likely suffer a setback due to the increasing inflation, its growth will remain robust in the next year,” he said.

“Hun Sen is Cambodia’s best guarantee that today’s stability will last,” explains FRANCE 24’s correspondent Cyril Payen. “He’s the man who put an end to the civil war and people know it.”

Preah Vihear, a distraction from national issues

But some local observers are concerned that the atmosphere of soaring nationalism fueled by the border dispute with Thailand over the Preah Vihear Temple may have diverted attention from more pressing issues such as the fight against corruption or the rising inflation.

“The Preah Vihear military standoff has attracted much of the attention of voters. Hence, bringing voters’ attention back to the elections is absolutely crucial,” Mr. Thun Saray, President of Committee for Free and Fair elections in Cambodia’s Board of Directors (COMFREL) was quoted saying in a statement.

The XIth century Buddhist temple, which was just listed as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites this month, was awarded to Cambodia in 1962 by the International Court of Justice. A decision Thailand never accepted.

“In Cambodia as in Thailand, the dispute is mostly an issue of internal politics which politicians have been building up for electoral reasons,” Payen confirmed.

"The level of uncertainty is minimal"

By all accounts, Hun Sen very much hopes to tighten the CPP grip on Parliament. “The level of uncertainty is minimal,” said Guillard. “The main question is to whether the CPP will improve its 2003 score. They are reportedly aiming for something between 75 and 85 seats” - up from his current 73 seats.

The CPP’s main contender is the Party of Sam Rainsy (PSR), a former finance minister who campaigned against Cambodia’s rampant corruption. He could benefit from the internal divisions that have left the CPP’s former coalition partner, the royalist FUNCINPEC party, weakened.

“The final results depend on the degree of manipulation,” Rainsy, who complained that he didn’t have access to broadcast media, told Newsweek Magazine. “If we can prevent, resist or overcome this, we will have more votes than last time.”

A number of international observers will be monitoring the polls after a campaign, which local NGOs say has been marred by violence and intimidation against voters. Six people rare reported to have been murdered since the beginning of the electoral campaign.

However “the number of cases of murder, intimidation, threats and irregularities in these elections is lower than in previous elections,” the COMFREL said in its statement.

Ideal timing

Already convinced of its impending electoral victory, the CPP has called for a new meeting between Cambodia and Thailand on July 28 - the day after the elections - to find a solution to the military buildup around the temple both countries claim as their own.

The first trial of Khmer Rouge leaders in a UN-backed court should get underway in October, a timing that could spare the CPP some embarrassing revelations about the possible ties between the party and the former rulers.

Hun Sen, who briefly served as a foot soldier under the Khmer Rouge, went as far as claiming credit for the trials. “I negotiated this trial directly with [then UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan,” Hun Sen claimed in the FRANCE 24 interview. “In Cambodia, if you don’t have Hun Sen’s signature, nothing gets done.”

Myanmar Attacks Protesters, Arresting Monks

September 27, 2007
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

BANGKOK, Sept. 26 — The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever larger protests in cities around the country. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air and arrested hundreds of the monks who are at the heart of the demonstrations.

A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.

Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.

In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

However, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the United Nations was “urgently dispatching” a special envoy to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

A spokesman for President Bush, in New York City for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, denounced the crackdown and urged restraint. A day before, White House officials had expressed hope that Mr. Bush’s announcement of new sanctions directed against the military government’s leaders would intensify pressure on them not to use violence against the protesters.

“The United States is very troubled by the action of the junta against the Burmese people,” the spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday afternoon. “We call on them to show restraint and to move to a peaceful transition to democracy.”

Though the crowds in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, were large and energetic on Wednesday, they were smaller than on previous days, apparently in part because of the deployment of armed soldiers to prevent monks from leaving some of the main temples.

But it appeared that an attempt by the military to halt the protests through warnings, troop deployments and initial bursts of violence had not succeeded. Political analysts said the next steps in the crackdown might be yet more aggressive and widespread.

The foreign diplomat described an amazing scene on Wednesday as a column of 8,000 to 10,000 people flooded past his embassy following a group of about 800 monks.

They were trailed by four truckloads of military men, watching but not taking action. The diplomat, in keeping with his embassy’s policy, spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to news reports and telephone interviews from Myanmar, which is sealed off to foreign reporters, the day’s activities began with a confrontation at the giant gold-spired Shwedagon Pagoda, which has been one of the focal points of the demonstrations.

In the first reported violence in nine days of demonstrations by monks in Yangon, police officers with riot shields dispersed up to 100 monks who were trying to enter the temple, firing tear gas and warning shots and knocking some monks to the ground. As many as 200 monks were reported to have been arrested at the pagoda.

Several hundred monks then walked through downtown Yangon to the Sule Pagoda, another site of the demonstrations, where truckloads of soldiers were seen arriving Tuesday. A violent confrontation was reported there; more shots were fired and a number of arrests were made.

On a broad avenue near the temple, hundreds of people sat facing a row of soldiers, calling out to them, “The people’s armed forces, our armed forces!” and “The armed forces should not kill their own people!”

In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, more than 800 monks, nuns and other demonstrators were confronted by some 100 soldiers who tried to stop them from marching from the Mahamuni Paya Pagoda, which they had tried to enter earlier, The Associated Press reported.

The demonstrations in Yangon have grown from several hundred people protesting a fuel price rise in mid-August to as many as 100,000 on Sunday, led by tens of thousands of monks in the largest and most sustained protests since 1988.

That earlier peaceful uprising was crushed by the military, which shot into crowds, killing an estimated 3,000 people. It was during the turmoil that the current military junta took power in Myanmar, and it has maintained its grip by arresting dissidents, quashing political opposition and using force and intimidation to control the population.

Now, emboldened by the presence of the monks, huge crowds have joined the demonstrations in protests that reflect years of discontent over economic hardship and political repression.

At first, the government held back as the protests grew. It issued its first warning on Monday night, when the religious affairs minister said the government was prepared to take action against the protesting monks.

On Tuesday night, the government announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew, banned gatherings of more than five people and placed the cities of Yangon and Mandalay under what amounts to martial law. Troops began taking up positions at strategic locations around Yangon and tried to seal off five of the largest and most active monasteries.

As the protests grew, public figures began to come forward, and on Tuesday the government arrested the first of them, a popular comedian, Zarganar, who had urged people to join the demonstrations. He had irritated the government in the past with his veiled political gibes.

The crackdown on Wednesday came in the face of warnings and pleas to the junta from around the world to refrain from the kind of violence that had made the country’s ruling generals international pariahs.

At the United Nations, President Bush on Tuesday announced a largely symbolic tightening of American sanctions against Myanmar’s government. The European Union threatened to tighten its own sanctions if violence was used. On Wednesday, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the first step after any meeting of the Security Council should be to send a United Nations envoy to Myanmar.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and antiapartheid campaigner, have spoken out in support of their fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, who has been held under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

The junta was also hearing the message directly from diplomats based in Yangon. The British ambassador, Mark Canning, said he met with a government official on Tuesday to urge restraint.

“You need to look very carefully at the underlying political and economic hardships,” he said he told the official. “The government must also understand what this is about — not fuel prices, but decades of dissatisfaction.”

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from New York.

Democracy takes backseat 10 years after Cambodia coup

Friday, July 06, 2007
Seth Meixner
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

"We've become more autocratic, to say the least, if not a dictatorship" - Dr Lao Mong Hay

The anniversary Thursday of Cambodia's worst political upheaval in a decade - the bloody ouster of one prime minister by another - went by unnoticed on the streets of the capital Phnom Penh.

"Nothing's changed since then," said mototaxi driver Ou Dara, pondering the events of the past 10 years. "The government doesn't know the real needs of the people."

While Cambodia's profile has risen abroad and double-digit economic growth generates unprecedented wealth for some at home, the clashes in July 1997 ultimately doomed the dream of multi-party democracy in the battered country, observers said.

After three days of fighting that erupted on July 5, Prime Minister Hun Sen deposed his political partner and rival Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Scores were killed, while royalists loyal to Ranariddh were hunted down, tortured and executed - their decomposing bodies unearthed in the following weeks by rights workers. Hun Sen's troops looted the city.

The coup also killed one of the great hopes of the UN's massive 1991-1993 intervention to promote plurality in Cambodia: a power-sharing agreement that appointed both Ranariddh and Hun Sen as co-prime ministers after disputed national polls in 1993.

It gave Hun Sen - a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla who emerged from the genocide of the late 1970s as the country's most accomplished political street- fighter - sole power to shape the country to his liking. Under his increasingly hardline rule, Cambodia's political elite have turned one of the world's most expensive experiments in democratization into their own feudal playground, observers said.

"There is a cult of personality embodied by our prime minister," said Lao Mong Hay, a Cambodian analyst with the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission.

"We've become more autocratic, to say the least, if not a dictatorship."

Billions of dollars in aid and the prodding of international donors have done little to push Hun Sen's Cambodia toward democracy, he said.

In fact, the relative peace of the past decade has had the opposite effect, allowing the prime minister and his ruling Cambodian People's Party to largely consolidate their power and wealthunopposed in the name of stability.

Some diplomats argue that Cambodia's working, multi-party legislature and regular elections are evidence that democracy has taken greater hold since the 1997 coup.

"The fundamentals of democracy are still there. You have a parliament, you have a government and you have elections," said one diplomatic official.

"Look at Cambodia's economic growth figures."

The economy is perhaps Hun Sen's biggest achievement since assuming total control over Cambodia. Double- digit growth has brought Cambodia back from the brink of failure, offering greater global exposure, jobs at home and giving rise to a middle class.

But prosperity does not go hand in hand with good governance, said Thun Saray, director of the Cambodian civil society group Adhoc.

"There is a tendency in some countries around the region - China and Singapore especially - to think that economic development without democracy does work," he said.

"That is the model that has inspired our leaders. They like that idea, but does it work for Cambodia? Economic development gives only material satisfaction, but justice is still not for the weak or poor."

Old habits die hard as the East changes

Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two to Pol Pot

22/06/2007
By Sebastien Berger, South East Asia Correspondent
The Telegraph (UK)

The old man in Gucci shades stepped forward slowly, carefully placing his four-legged cane on the ground.

"Buy some lychees for the foreigner," he ordered his daughter, at a roadside stall in the countryside of western Cambodia. This correspondent had never been given fresh fruit by a genocidal geriatric before but Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two to Pol Pot and a man with the blood of up to two million people on his hands, did exactly that.

It felt surreal, as does the tortured progress of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal, set up to try the likes of Nuon Chea but beset by delays, even after the government spent years in negotiations, seeking to avoid embarrassing the many former Khmers Rouge in its upper ranks.

In the meantime there is no accounting for the victims, their relatives or history, while memories fade and potential defendants die.

It is a stark demonstration of Asian pragmatism over principle, and one that the people have no choice but to accept - Cambodia is ruled by Hun Sen, a strongman who has crushed dissent and co-opted the remains of the political opposition.

Similar states of affairs exist behind the palm-lined beaches and growing economies of the region. Of the other countries of south-east Asia, two - Burma and Thailand - are under military rule, two are Communist dictatorships, two are de facto one-party states, ruled by the same organisation since independence, and one is an absolute Islamic monarchy.

Only three - Indonesia, the Philippines, and East Timor - hold competitive, if sometimes flawed, elections.

Where democracy is a recent innovation, it can be inspiring. In the tsunami-devastated Indonesian province of Aceh queues of people lined up to elect a former separatist as governor, just along the road from a mass grave containing 46,718 bodies.

Elsewhere, though, quiet acceptance of the status quo is the general rule. In his book East and West, Chris Patten decried the concept of "Asian values" - the idea that Oriental societies are somehow different - and argued for the universality of human rights.

It is an admirable, idealist position, but in practice reality interferes. For the most part the nations of south-east Asia have gone from monarchies, to colonies, to autocracies. There has been no opportunity for a democratic tradition to develop, and deference to authority, whether familial, social, or political, is ingrained from birth, as it has been for centuries.

Even in Thailand, long seen as a beacon for democracy in the region, the culture of obedience is such that when the old elite asserted themselves over the elected prime minister in a palace-backed military coup last year it was hugely popular.

As one Thai woman put it: "The army belongs to the king, and the king belongs to Thailand, so it's okay."

Outside poverty-stricken basket-cases like Burma and Laos, increasing material comforts have allowed the authorities to establish a trade-off with political liberty, with Singapore and Vietnam as the prime examples.

At the celebrations for the Crown Prince of Brunei's wedding, one citizen explained: "Who needs democracy when the sultan gives us everything?"

And with face and status all-important in many societies, such as Thailand, the opportunity to buy international brand names matters more to some than the nature of their government.

Instead it is left to a few brave souls to carry the torch for greater freedoms than the right to buy a Louis Vuitton bag.

Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi is renowned as the world's only imprisoned Nobel laureate, but there are unsung heroes too - Chee Soon Juan, Singapore's most outspoken politician and an occasional resident of the city-state's prison, or Thich Quang Do, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who lives under "pagoda arrest" in Ho Chi Minh City for daring to defy the Communist regime.

Wearing simple brown robes, he is probably the most impressive person I have ever met - and secret police followed me, blatantly obviously, from his temple.

"They put me into prison, they can put me under house arrest, they can do anything they like, but I am not afraid," he said. "You can stifle one man for his whole life, or you can stifle a group of people for some time, but you cannot stifle the whole people all the time." I hope he is right.

Cambodia - an April Fool's democracy

Wednesday, 30 May 2007
By Alanta Colley
Posted on Onlineopinion.com.au

In Cambodia, the eve of the election is quietly known as “the night of the barking dogs”. The “dogs”; politicians and their henchmen; make their rounds, dispensing gifts and threats, winning votes through fear and favour.

This year, the night before Cambodia’s April Fool’s Day elections, the dogs barked in unison for Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). As the polling booths shut, so did Cambodia’s chance to rid itself of this ex-Khmer Rouge military dictator. Hun Sen and his faction marched to victory with 98 per cent of the vote. The only other “democracy” recorded receiving such compelling voter support for a single party was Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.

The rise and rise of Hun Sen’s Empire marks the fall of the great democratic experiment in Cambodia. The country remains a democracy in name only; a thin shell hiding the power and corruption of the CPP beneath its surface.

Democracy arrived in Cambodia in a blaze of glory in 1992, when 20,000 international soldiers and civilians, under the auspices of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), descended upon the small Asian country.

The mission was to be an international symbol of the new world order. The Cold War had ended; America's democracy had won over Soviet communism. Cambodia was the lucky recipient of exported democracy - a poultice to assuage the wounds received from years under the bloody Khmer Rouge.

The 1993 election went smoothly and FUNCINPEC (Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif, which translates to "National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia") under Prince Norodom Ranariddh was victorious, receiving over 45 per cent of the vote. The UN, in a celebratory mood packed up and went home, declaring the whole event a great success.

However, under Khmer law, no party could rule with less than a two-thirds majority. Hun Sen’s CPP, which received less than 38 per cent of the vote, threatened a secession of the eastern provinces of Cambodia if Ranariddh did not share the victory. From the days of the Khmer Rouge a faction in the military and many other friends in influential positions in Cambodian society backed Hun Sen. His threats had clout.

FUNCINPEC submitted to a coalition government with the CPP. Cambodia became the only country which could boast not only one, but two prime ministers: First Prime Minister Ranariddh, and Second Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen was later asked to reflect on what UNTAC had brought through their good efforts in Cambodia. He replied simply, “AIDS”. Hun Sen paid no thanks to the UN for their efforts to install democracy in Cambodia.

Since that first election the CPP has tightened its grip on Cambodia. Hun Sen has consolidated his coterie of thugs and villains. Cambodia’s standing army grew and became the largest per capita in the world. Compulsory conscription was introduced for Cambodian men between 18 and 30, and military spending consumed almost half the annual budget. Hun Sen’s faction became an unassailable force inside and outside of Parliament.

With this power, a decade later, Hun Sen set about ironing out the last wrinkles of opposition to his empire.

In 2005 opposition leader Sam Rainsy spoke up in parliament about the CPP’s attempts to assassinate him. The CPP quickly responded by passing a bill retroactively revoking Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary immunity. Hun Sen then issued a $5 million defamation suit against him. Sam Rainsy fled the country, and two of his ministers were imprisoned.

In the months leading up to this election yet another political opponent was forced to flee the country. Prince Ranariddh, the former democratic leader of Cambodia, left the country after charges were brought against him. While married to Princess Marie, Ranariddh had publicly acknowledged a long-term relationship with another woman. With this in mind the CPP pushed legislation through parliament outlawing adultery.

Unofficially, as parliamentarians chatted among themselves, they referred to the law as the “Ranariddh legislation”. Within hours of it being passed by the National Assembly Ranariddh was charged.

The “monogamy law”, in reality, has the potential to see most of the Cambodian male population put behind bars. “Sweet hearts” and prostitutes are a broadly accepted aspect of Khmer male culture. The stooges of the CPP are certainly not exempt from this. All have mistresses. Yet few arrests have taken place since the Prince was charged. The law was merely one more example of how Hun Sen manipulated the law to ensure his own hegemony.

Outside parliament similar CCP plots to manipulate this election process took place. Efforts to monitor and observe the election process were thwarted with the CPP’s devious tricks.

The Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL) acts as an independent election watchdog. With more than 11,000 polling booths across the country; COMFREL is responsible for mobilising thousands of Khmer and international volunteers to visit the polling booths and report any incidents of violence or perversion of the voting procedures. COMFREL’s monitors report back to COMFREL by sending text messages to a COMFREL number which records all reports on a computer database.

Two days before the election, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) - a body made up almost exclusively of CPP party members - made an announcement. Text message services would be shut down up until the hour the polling booths closed. The NEC stated that this was to stop political parties spamming party propaganda in the “tranquility period” before the election. The real victim however was COMFREL and their monitoring activities. COMFREL had no way to instantaneously record the assessments of their thousands of monitors.

The NEC knew COMFREL’s monitoring strategy many months before. With the monitors muted COMFREL could not quickly dispatch additional observers to polling stations where trouble ensued.

Perversions and disruptions at booths went unrecorded and thwarted COMFREL's efforts to report the election.

Frustrating the efforts of COMFREL’s monitoring strategy was unquestionably an advantage to the CPP. The CPP boasts a long history of employing dubious and illegal methods of influencing results at the polling booth.

Booths with traditional swings against the CPP often receive visits from armed thugs with shady connections to the CPP. They cause disturbances outside the booth, scaring away prospective voters. In some provinces, Khmers have been scared out of voting after CPP candidates told them that the CPP had satellites that could see who they voted for. They were told they would be punished if they voted against CPP.

In a country where roughly 30 per cent of the population are illiterate crafty politicians can easily pull the wool over people’s eyes. Fear is by far the most effective electioneering tool. Cambodians know better than most what a government is capable of doing to its own citizens. The Khmer Rouge period hangs like a darkened shroud over the country still with the Khmer Rouge, 30 years later, still unpunished.

Yet despite the corruption, violence and fear Cambodians do want to vote. Sixty-five per cent of those registered to vote made the long trek to their provinces to make their contribution to democracy. Compared to long-established democracies of the UK and America, this is significantly high.

Each generation of Cambodians chip away at illiteracy levels and grow more politically conscious. Yet at the same time, Hun Sen's power base grows in strength. In a country with absolutely no social welfare system; corruption is a means of survival. It is entrenched at every level. While corruption remains, so will the CPP. While a vote can be still be purchased for roughly 25 cents (US) no change can be expected in Cambodia.

In a country that has known no past other than the reign of emperors, the weighty burden of colonialism and the barbarism of a murderous communist force, perhaps the end result of the democratic experiment is not so surprising. The culture of power and violence entrenched long ago did not dissipate overnight in one expensive UN operation. They merely adapted to a different system. It has happened many times before.

Cambodia bodes ill for the similar experiments of nation building in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands. Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that polling booths, monitors and peacekeepers are all very well but cannot alone displace embedded hierarchy, powerbrokers and mobsters. These result from far more systemic problems of poverty and instability.

Cultural norms of hierarchy, religion and tradition also contribute to the perpetuation of such power structures. It’s time we abandoned the concept of democracy as a universal band-aid solution, applicable to any country and situation. The reality is far more complex and so should be the response.

First published in The Diplomat on May 28, 2007.