Wednesday, September 3, 2008

In Cambodia’s Emerging Democracy - It is Up with the Huns and Hors and Down with the Princes and Princesses

Phnom Penh, Cambodia
And now come the days – or better – a continuance of the days of the Huns and Hors, and with them, the downward spiral of the Princes and Princesses. What I mean by this is the Huns, as in HUN Sen, and the Hors, as in HOR Namhong. Mr. Hun Sen is the leader of the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia; in fact, he has officially held a Prime Minister position of some form, under a Cambodian government of some form, since 1985. Mr. Hor is Mr. Hun’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and longtime member of the CPP. The CPP is and will remain the ruling and most powerful political party in Cambodia’s emerging "democracy". Cambodians recently had their fourth national election since the official end of the civil war and signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements. Those first post-war and pro-peace elections were in 1993 and held under the war ending, peace keeping and nation building efforts of UNTAC (United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia). The Huns and Hors have been bludgeoning and beating any political opposition ever since in the best form of any of the post-Colonial, neo-Communist, pseudo-Democratic, pro-Capitalist, Asian strongmen.

Mr. Hun’s, along with his legions represented by his Foreign Minister, Mr. Hor, main rival for power during these early years of Cambodia’s post-war transitional development has been the wily Prince Norodom Ranariddh (and the perhaps more sophisticated and durable opponent, Mr. Sam Rainsy; but first we address the Prince who is more central to this article), former leader of the FUNCINPEC political party. FUNCINPEC is the French abbreviation for Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif, which in English translates to National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia. It has been called the royalist party because it emerged out of the political movement founded by the Prince’s father, the one time Prince and King Norodom Sihanouk (Sihanouk, now in his retirement is called the King Father, and is an enormous and multi-faceted figure in modern Cambodian history and politics and any considerations on him is much for another writing, if not a multi-volume set), and many of its members and supporters are from Cambodian royal families. The history of Cambodia’s monarchy goes back to the mighty Angkorian Empire of the 9th through 15th centuries of this our Common Era, whose ruins and history form the backbone of Cambodia’s tourism industry. Now those times witnessed some very powerful Princes, who would become the God-Kings. From all that can be fairly garnered, the godlike status of the monarchy has faded in strength along with its politicians, that is, except among some true believers.

As we've said, the Khmers went to the polls, on July 27th, in the third election since that first UN experience of 1993 to vote in the members of their fourth Parliament, called the National Assembly, and with it, the next government. With the result tallied, it is more than clear that Prince Ranariddh has now been reduced to barely a leader in exile – usually in France and lately in Malaysia – an all but feckless and minimally symbolic political force that has been trounced and cast aside by the Huns and Hors, as well as many of those formerly under the Prince’s leadership within FUNCINPEC. The Prince’s, and along with him many a Princess’s, downfall has been unfolding for years primarily because of his direct clash with the Huns and Hors.

The writing was well on the wall following those first UNTAC supervised elections when FUNCINPEC won the most votes, 54 to the CPP's 51, in the 120 seat National Assembly. The newly freer and more peaceful masses had spoken, and as the head of the party with the largest number of seats gained, the Prince staked his claim to the Prime Minister’s position. Yet in short order Hun Sen muscled the Prince to concede to him a position and title as a Co-Prime Minister, if nominally labeled, the Second Co-Prime Minister. Demanding a right to be an equal at the head of the government or risk the unraveling of the hard fought peace dividend, Mr. Hun, along with Mr. Hor and his other strong supporters, not to mention a pliant international community, was able to demand and receive a position at the very top. A recipe for feuds and failure, the rivalry and contempt led to tension and machinations, some involving alliance with remaining Khmer Rouge, that ultimately boiled over to urban warfare between the Co-Prime Ministers and their armed factions in Phnom Penh by July of 1997. The Prince promptly fled the country. It was a form of coup d’etat, another one in Cambodia’s post-independence history involving a royalist being overthrown.

The overthrow of Prince Sihanouk’s government in 1970 by the American backed Khmer Republicans escalated the Communist revolution that led to the victories and horrors of the Khmer Rouge and regime of Democratic Kampuchea. That coup plunged Cambodia into its darkest days and decades of civil war and strife, which was only put to an end in the 1997-1998 timeframe with the emergence of the Huns and Hors dominant position in regards to state security, military and political forces and clout. It was during the upheaval in July of 1997 that Hun Sen and all the forces loyal to him began the final push to seriously marginalize the royalists, still led by the Prince, and then following the suppression of the Prince, end the resistance still posed by a defeated but surviving and thus still threatening Khmer Rouge movement. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and the rest of the Rouges put down their arms and came over through negotiations and amnesties, and others through arrest and detention.

The elections of 1998 and then 2003 resulted in further wins for the Huns and Hors, but still not by the margins needed to avoid any accommodation with the Princes and Princesses, again most notably represented by Ranariddh. Coalition governments, yet more dominated by the Huns and Hors, were a necessity to avoid total gridlock or more pitched battles. Upon my arrival to Phnom Penh in July of 2003, just before that election, I was amazed as time went on and it took almost an entire year for the Huns and Hors, and the Princes and Princesses, to come together to put together yet another form of a “coalition” government. Despite the superficial look of co-existence, the final assault on the Prince had begun in earnest. It was during this third mandate which saw a steady erosion of the Prince’s hold onto and place in power, resulting in his removal from his key positions as President of the National Assembly and leader of FUNCINPEC. He has been ousted, forced again into exile, tried and convicted in absentia for criminal Breach of Trust related to the sale of property allegedly owned by FUNCINPEC that netted the Prince many millions of dollars. It was General Niek Bun Chhay, another leading force in FUNCINPEC who led the revolt against the Prince. Bun Chhay was the Commander of the royalist forces that got whooped by those most loyal to Mr. Hun in the 1997 coup and battles that forced the issue. Hence, the Prince prefers to stay outside of Cambodia for fear of having to answer the Breach of Trust charges and conviction of 18 months in the big house plus millions in compensation that have been finally affirmed by Cambodia’s highest court, the notoriously not so independent Supreme Court. (It so happens that the Executive Director of my NGO, Mr. SOK Sam Oeun, actually represented the Prince in the Appeal and Supreme Courts and the proverbial show trials put on therein; why the Chief Judge refused to read the judgment at the Supreme Court claiming he was too sick, with perhaps the not so subtle reference being made to the fix that was in.) For the record, going into this last election, the new FUNCINPEC party head, slated to be Prime Minister should a miracle happen, was none other than Her Royal Highness, Princess Norodom Arunrasmey. So while the Prince was out, this time the Princess was in, or not, as events would have it.

In the clash of the ever ascendant Huns and Hors with the reeling and groping Princes and Princesses, Bun Chhay well exemplifies the powerful opportunists who have gone over, if not explicitly, to the Huns and Hors. He himself barely survived July of 1997 as the Commander of the Prince’s army. Legend has it that though his, and the Prince’s, forces were routed, Bun Chhay was blessed by magical powers, in the form of his sacred tattoos and relationships to certain holy men, at times invisible to his armed nemeses, and thus escaped the conflict to live another day. (The Cambodians are a very superstitious people.) Bun Chhay has aligned himself with the Huns and Hors, and under his and their thumb the Prince and Princesses long and scheme for some sense of connection to and influence within the political transformation and evolution of post-conflict Cambodia where security, stability and economic development rule the day! We should note that the Prince and Princess aren’t necessarily on the best of terms either as based on a new criminal law against Adultery (a law some surmise was enacted by the Huns and Hors with the main purpose to further target their antagonist number one), charges were brought against the Prince by his Princess - is nothing sacred? It’s a rhetorical question.

Once ousted by his own party, to no great surprise even while in exile, in a last ditch effort to stay in the political arena and spotlight prior to the fourth national election, the Prince started his own party, called – are you ready - the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP). You cannot miss the Prince’s handsome face in the NRP’s logo. Many a Cambodian will point out that he is the only political leader whose face shows up prominently directly in the middle of a political party’s logo. Though being an American, I kind of fancy the posters of the CPP which alongside the logo do show the faces of their three founding fathers, Gentlemen and Comrades: Hang Samrin, Hun Sen and Chea Sim. Mr. Hang is the Honorary President of the CPP and replaced the Prince as President of the National Assembly, and Mr. Sim is the President of the Senate. Years from now these men may just be looked upon in a way the Yanks do their George Washingtons, John Adams, and Thomas Jeffersons – though it is fairly certain that these Cambodian patriarch’s record will not lead to legends praising their honesty and embracing of Enlightenment political theory, and they are after all from exactly the same post-Colonial, Communist military and political movement which began as the National United Front for the Salvation of Kampuchea. These three former Khmer Rouge cadres from the Eastern Zone, under the threat of purge and "smashing" at the Killing Fields, allied themselves with the newly victorious Army of Vietnam to reclaim Cambodia from the outrages and atrocities of the Pol Pot led Angkar. And by the looks of things, it appears almost beyond a shadow of doubt that the United Front turned People’s Party has won on all fronts.

So the Prince silently stares at Cambodia from his defeated party’s logo, while the Huns and Hors proclaim their victory over all would be challengers and the land. And there are other challengers, lest we not be fair and far sighted. These too have found it equally difficult and dangerous to take on the Huns and Hors. The afore-mentioned Mr. Sam Rainsy, whose party also bears his name as the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), long has been on the Cambodian political scene and is as vocal a critic of, and a threat to, the Huns and Hors as any political rival has been and could be these days. Mr. Rainsy and his supporters are often harmed, imprisoned and, in fact, murdered, because of their willingness to exercise and demand free speech, expression and assembly, rights that are explicitly enshrined in the Cambodian Constitution and International human rights treaties that Cambodia’s separate, equal and independent branches of government are bound to uphold and enforce. As the Princes and Princesses go down, Mr. Rainsy, perhaps Cambodia’s only true Democrat of any substance and track record (though there are some others, namely Mr. Kem Sokha, leader of the newly formed Human Rights Party (HRP) who might beg to differ), manages to gain traction and, indeed, votes. Despite Sam Rainsy crying foul regarding a number of irregularities that if the election review process was truly fair and independent would tend to show actual illegality and change the outcome to provide more seats for the SRP and less for the CPP, the vote will be confirmed with the following results: CPP, 90 seats; SRP, 26 seats; HRP, 3 seats; NRP, 2 seats; FUNCINPEC, 2 seats. In the last election it was FUNCINPEC that received 26 seats, with SRP holding its own at 24. This loss has been dramatic. In a shrewd manuever, during the last mandate, the Huns and Hors, with the endorsement of the SRP, changed the law to allow a government to be formed by a Party having a simple majority of seats in the National Assembly as opposed to the two thirds originally needed, a formula which necessitated all the untenable coalitions.

With these results, the march of the Huns and Hors strengthens as they reign supreme. As a genuine political force, the Princes and Princesses are falling from grace, perhaps never to be rehabilitated in Cambodia’s changing society. Like their logo of a lighted candle, the SRP’s flame shines brighter, potentially along with that of the HRP whose name plainly states what it claims to stand for. Only time will tell, but if one surveys the beauty and bounty of this fascinating Southeast Asian nation in its regional political context, I wouldn't expect the Huns and Hors rise to end any time too soon.

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