Photo courtesy of Adam Jones under a Creative Commons license.
On Sunday, Cambodians took to the polls to vote in the commune council elections held every five years. Like any Cambodian election, this one contained the usual theatrics of vote-buying, ghost ballots, missing names on the voter lists, intimidation, and all sorts of thuggery.
The official results won’t be out for a week or so. But even leaving out the boost from the typical hooliganism, there’s no doubt that the ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), swept away the opposition once again. Since 2007, the CPP’s main opponent, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), has run a mere 28 communes out of the 1,633 in the country.
This marks the 15th consecutive year that the CPP is the country’s lone power holder. I’m placing the starting point at Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 1997 coup against his royalist co-prime minister, Norodom Ranarridh.
This grip, though, does not mean that Cambodians are quiescently bowing to Hun Sen and other overlords. On the contrary, as I recently wrote in the Journal of International Peacekeeping, the first United Nations-sponsored elections in 1993 saw a remarkable 90% voter turnout — during which the royalist party, Funcinpec, defeated the CPP when it took nearly half the vote.
For all the UN failures, this open challenge to the CPP was a feat for a country that some scholars had passed off as inherently non-democratic, and incapable of holding “real” elections.
Since then, the CPP has consolidated its power through dominance over the military and police, and has capitalized on schisms in the opposition. Over at Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams points out that, last Friday, Hun Sen even joined the “10,000 Club” of dictators who’ve held onto their posts for 10,000 days.
Sure, this autocrat speaks with the cliché — as Qaddafi and Mubarak did — that he’s brought stability and growth to his country. But bear in mind that Hun Sen uses Pol Pot as his measuring stick. By that standard, Cambodia can’t move any direction except up.
Just took a look at HRW Brad Adams’ piece on Hun Sen linked to in this posting.
In that Adams calls Hun Sen “a former Khmer Rouge commander” but, rather strangely, fails to mention that Hun Sen (who I’m not defending) fell out with the Pol Pot element of the Khmer Rouge and had to flee to Vietnam. He then came back with the Vietnamese and fought against Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, who were by that time, backed by the US, UK and most fervently by the Thai Army. The irony of Adams quoting US State Dept officials regarding Cambodia shouldn’t be lost on anyone interested in SE Asian politics.
Hun Sen might be a monster but compared to the death toll enacted on the entire region by the US he’s still in the lower division of murder.
Some estimates place the number of Cambodian civilians killed by US bombing prior to the rise of the Khmer Rouge as over 500K. Some less than a 100k . The figures are, of course, impossible to verify but would almost certainly be 10s of 1000s of innocent men, women and children slaughtered by an illegal US bombing campaign. Now while Hun Sen should certainly be held to account for his brutality when will the US govt that Brad Adams is so happy to quote be brought to account for their grave warcrimes in Cambodia? Does Brad Adams consider these crimes as something even worth discussing as he has his friendly chit chats with his buddies in the US govt? Probably not.
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So falling out with or running away from Pol Pot is supposed to get your slate wiped clean? Note that returning to the country holding Vietnam’s coat tails does NOT constitute “fighting against Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” – he was fine holding Phnom Penh and letting the Vietnamese conscripts fight the KR.
Hun Sen is definitely a monster, let’s not forget it. He has blood on his hands going back to the inception of the brutal policies that led to Killing Fields. Before the fall of Phnom Penh he was actually active in Mondulkiri/Ratanakiri – the area that was used as a test bed for those policies.
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#1 Andrew Spooner
“He then came back with the Vietnamese and fought against Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, who were by that time, backed by the US, UK and most fervently by the Thai Army.”
You have simplified some of this and some of it you have simply got wrong Andrew. Hun Sen was a low to mid level Eastern Zone commander under So Phim. In 1978 when the Eastern Zone cadres were purged, and vast numbers of eastern Zone people were sent to Mok’s Southwestern Zone, to be casually murdered (the blue krama being the signal), Hun Sen fled to Vietnam. He re-entered Cambodia, along with Heng Samrin, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and evicted the Khmer Rouge. At this point the Khmer Rouge were not allied with either the KPNLF (because they did not yet exist), nor the Sihanouk aligned resistance….. Nor was there an anti Soviet/Viet alliance in place at this time for the US to back……
The cold war backing for a subsequent KPNLF/Royalist/KR alliance through the 80s is a separate point…. But in no way excuses your ignorance in attacking HRW…. Yes, Hun Sen was a low level Eastern Zone KR commander. That is fact.
In many ways the KR never went away, and in Cambodia they are still everywhere in certain regions at various levels of administration.
“Hun Sen might be a monster but compared to the death toll enacted on the entire region by the US he’s still in the lower division of murder.”
The worst atrocities committed against Khmer people were committed by other Khmer people…. The KR was an appalling brutal flowering of this, but atrocities had already become the norm under Sihanouk (and indeed regions controlled by Khmer Issarak as well) and also under Lon Nol.
Hun Sen is continuing a tradition of Khmer brutality that has little to do with America and much to do with Khmers…..
The human rights situation in Cambodia remains appalling and it is something HRW cannot fail to ignore…. The recent murder of Chut Wutty harks straight back to the murder of trade unionist, Chea Vichea, and the bad old days before that ….. Om Radsady gunned down outside a noodle shop on Moninvong in broad daylight, grenade attacks against opposition demonstrators etc etc….. It goes on.
This is a pattern of human rights abuses that has been well learned by Hun Sen…. And he is in a line of those who perpetrate them…. Sinanouk, Lon Nol…. The explosion of horror that was the Khmer Rouge….. And now Hun Sen…… Khmer killing Khmer and the exercise of raw, naked power….. Go figure.
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#2 Jon Wright
“Before the fall of Phnom Penh he was actually active in Mondulkiri/Ratanakiri – the area that was used as a test bed for those policies”
Jon, I think you will find he was fighting around the actual Eastern Zone areas (he is from Kompong Cham)…. i.e Prey Veng, Svay Rieng etc….. Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri were home to what the ‘Center’ thought of as the original ‘base’ people from the many years of fugitive jungle hiding with them before the Lon Nol coup and the subsequent Hanoi ‘activation’ of the KR…. They were not under So Phim’s Eastern Zone remit …… But if you have evidence that I am wrong on that, then I am happy to be corrected.
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Over the past two decades, Hun Sen has established political and economic stability in Cambodia, and a return to war looks very unlikely. Living standards, participation in education, average income, life expectancy, infant mortality, extra-judicial killings—all of these measures have improved during the Hun Sen era. It is partly for these reasons that he has such popular support. Of course it’s also the efficacy of his patronage networks throughout the country, but his performance is often discounted.
Hun Sen has said that first and foremost his skills are in intelligence gathering. With those skills, he’s done an incredible job of transforming a fractured nation where power came from with being good at war, into the politically and economically stable Cambodia that we know today. He’s certainly no angel, and that’s true even in recent years—in all likelihood he was responsible for the killing of Hok Lundy in 2007—but who’s complaining?
This election was not more of the same. There were over 200 politically motivated killings associated with the 1993 elections. Around 20 for the 1998 elections. Is anyone aware of any that are associated with the 2012 commune council elections?
While the result was basically a given, it was an interesting shift nonetheless. Over 35% of the population voted for a party other than the CPP. The HRP emerged as a significant opposition force that might be able to rival the SRP in years to come without the overt racism.
In Hun Sen’s home province, he got much less than the national average, just 52% of the vote. And in Phnom Penh, where the SRP have won at this level in the past, the CPP got more than the national average.
It’s too early to know what these shifts mean, but it’s not just more of the same.
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> “The worst atrocities committed against Khmer people were committed by other Khmer people”
Note that Hun Sen, who the article is about, is somewhat of an exception, in that among the top 20 or so KR that have gained some measure of infamy he was one of only 2 or 3 that were not ethnic Chinese/Vietnamese. Another observation: Whenever you find yourself loitering around the home villages of Indochinese thugs/despots/assortedodiousfigures, you always find … a Catholic church. Dan, as a photojournalist who doesn’t mind a bit of touring I wonder if you might find that a good theme for a book – your temple stuff was good.
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#5 Willem
“Over the past two decades, Hun Sen has established political and economic stability in Cambodia, and a return to war looks very unlikely.”
This is certainly true. He is also guilty of serial human rights abuses.
” Of course it’s also the efficacy of his patronage networks throughout the country”
In 1998 that might have been the bullet in the bottom of the glass or the man found dead in a tub of acid….. Claimed as a ‘suicide’ by the CPP spokesman.
“Hun Sen has said that first and foremost his skills are in intelligence gathering.”
He is a genius at what he does. He runs rings around all politicians in Cambodia and he now makes Monkeys out of many politicians in Thailand including his ‘friends’.
“It’s too early to know what these shifts mean, but it’s not just more of the same.”
It is too early to say…. But I should imagine it is actually simply more of the same.
#6 Jon Wright
“Note that Hun Sen, who the article is about, is somewhat of an exception, in that among the top 20 or so KR that have gained some measure of infamy he was one of only 2 or 3 that were not ethnic Chinese/Vietnamese.”
Have you got a breakdown on this Jon?….. Pol Pot was of semi-Chinese lineage, Ieng Sary is Kampuchea Krom of course…. So Phim was not… Former Khmer Issarak as was Mok…. Rice field people….. Sar Kheng is Viet… Nuon Chea is certainly of Chinese origin…. I would be interested to know…. What about Vorn Vet?… There will, of course, be some divide in ethnicity between the educated former ‘Circle Marxiste’ educated cadres and the on the ground Issarak fighters…. Hun Sen was too young to be Issarak…. But he is of that ilk. A full break down would be interesting to see…. having said all that, to clam Saloth Sar, Nuon Chea or Ineg Sary are more foreign than Khmer is thin ice. Their policies are also best seen within a context of Khmerv tradition both political and cultural…. A point very well put by Philip Short.
“Dan, as a photojournalist who doesn’t mind a bit of touring I wonder if you might find that a good theme for a book – your temple stuff was good.”
There are many Dan’s out there… The Dan, I think you are referring to has been touring Cambodia for nearly two decades and has been published widely on the country including in both pictures and words in both books and magazines.
Anyway, to get back to the subject of the piece by Brad Adams, even given the relative stability that Cambodia now enjoys, human rights abuses are legion…. Land grabs, intimidation, killings…. land grabs more than ever as the Chinese and South Koreans pour in investment and hedge funds park write-off money… It all still goes on. Just look at Komong Som for starters.
In both ’98 and ’03 many would argue Hun Sen and the stability that has come with his rule post the ‘non-coup’ in 1997 was the better of a few probably more horrific evils…. And given the brutally feudal nature of both Cambodian society and politics, this is a legitimate argument…. It does not, however, mean that Human Rights Organisations should cease to do their job and turn a blind eye to continuing human rights abuses in Cambodia. Brad Adams article is simply outlining some of these contemporary issues and putting them into what he sees as appropriate context.
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Care to elaborate?
There is very little in Cambodia that could be accurately described as being static, but maybe that’s not what you mean here.
I wouldn’t think there’s a great risk of Human Rights Organisations turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Cambodia. But to focus solely on human rights abuses risks overlooking everything else that is taking place in Cambodia. It’s not simply a hellhole of human rights abuses—though for some Cambodians it is.
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> “The Dan, I think you are referring to …”
I had in mind the Dan who did the book on temples of Thailand with Joe Cummings. I visualize dramatic pics of bomb-struck churches in Nam Dinh, Nghe An, Ha Tinh (have to be quick as they’re all getting renovated) as well as Kampuchea Krom and Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom and Battambang … and whatever can be found in Laos.
Regarding the backgrounds, I made a list way back and it goes thus: Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Duch, Bun Rany, Yun Yat, You Yuon all Chinese. Ieng Sary, Son Sen Being Viet/Chinese. Ieng Thirith I don’t know, Hu Nim a Khmer peasant. I’ll add the other two names you mentioned to my list after I have looked them up.
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Dan
Thanks for the shorthand history of Hun Sen. I once interviewed one of his former lower-ranking officers who was with Hun Sen/Vietnamese when they invaded. He had some interesting anecdotes. You might not know this but I also author a FP book on Cambodia and we mention the fact that Hun Sen was a former KR cadre and plenty more about his background, the coup, his abuse of power and some of the other detail you mention above. I’d be happy to send you a press copy if you wish.
I am also in the process of reading the former UK Labour Party MP, Chris Mullin’s diaries. In Decline and Fall, Mullin describes a meeting with Ok Serai Sopheak , a former FUNCINPEC commander during the controversial coalition with the KR. Mullin recounts how Ok described how the coalition worked as “The West supported the non-communist resistance, the Chinese bankrolled the KR. The Thais stole about 30% of the foreign assistance that passed through their area.” Ok also claims that training of his cadre was supervised by an international contact group including ‘Thais, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and the US”. Mullin adds that OK said “Relations with the Khmer Rouge and the Thais were close (they had safe houses in Thailand… everything). Was he [Ok] nervous about being allied to the KR? ‘It was high politics. Even the US andUK had voted for the Khmer Rouge at the UN’ [said Ok].”
In my view Brad Adams’ line is clearly just a parroting of US foreign policy in the region. He directly quotes the US State Dept in his piece in order to condemn Hun Sen, so, in my view, drags US foreign policy into the frame. Has Adams ever called for US govt and military people to be fully investigated for their criminal bombing of Cambodia? I’d be happy to be corrected on that matter if he has.
In my view we can’t single one villain out whilst ignoring the context and other, equally brutal, perpetrators. That reduces human rights to purely US leverage where their crimes get ignored and the people they deem as “bad men” get condemned.
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#8 Willem
“There is very little in Cambodia that could be accurately described as being static,
Apart from the fact that Hun Sen remains Premier perhaps.
“It’s not simply a hellhole of human rights abuses—though for some Cambodians it is.”
Yes.
#9 Jon Wright
“I visualize dramatic pics of bomb-struck churches in Nam Dinh, Nghe An, Ha Tinh (have to be quick as they’re all getting renovated) as well as Kampuchea Krom and Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom and Battambang … and whatever can be found in Laos”
They were renovating them back in the very early 90s in VN…. Not sure about the state of play now. In Cambodia there have also been many renovations…. Although up until recently the ancient Angkorian temples were still being looted and my well still be….. Which is why some of the best preserved and most beautiful ones are in Thailand…. Pimai particularly, which is a gem.
“Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Duch, Bun Rany, Yun Yat, You Yuon all Chinese. Ieng Sary, Son Sen Being Viet/Chinese.”
This is interesting…. Especially Mok…..Although whatever his lineage in Takeo, he was no city intellectual…..He was a down and dirty fighter/killer. Ieng Sary was of partly Chinese ancestry but it is his background as Kampuchea Krom that really defines him…. And of course back in the days in Paris when him and his radical buddies were hanging around the Rue de Théatre and the Place du Commerce he was very much the leader of the Circle Marxiste, whilst Saloth Sar, was pretty much a nobody. I wonder how much extra clout his Kampuchea Krom background gave him when the movement was emerging. …. At the time Khmer leftists were very much in the shadow of the Vietnamese as part of a wider Indochina movement…. Not that this made him any less anti ‘yuon’ (I hate that word) when the time came.
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OWWB: “to clam Saloth Sar, Nuon Chea or Ineg Sary are more foreign than Khmer is thin ice”
I suppose so. But look at Thaksin and Abhisit – Chinese/Vietnamese – and the trouble they’ve wreaked next door, and it gets interesting I think.
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… oh I forgot to mention ‘him’ as well.
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#13 Jon
When one looks at Phnom Penh pre 1970 (I wasn’t there on account of being too young. My Dad was there quiet often though), it was largely a Vietnamese and Chinese town. As you already know of course, the separation between urban and rural (especially allegiances in the rice belt) is what shifted things so quickly circa 1972/1973, the Lon Nol coup having upset the precarious balance Sihanouk had achieved in the quid pro quo of restraining the indigenous Khmer opposition as a price to pay for North Vietnamese presence…..
But having recognised that urban/rural divide I would still not see Nuon Chea, Pol Pot or Ieng Thirith as lacking in ‘Khmerness’ whatever the ethnic make up of their antecedents ….. And certainly not Mok. Khmer Chinese (those not murdered already) are still quite a distinct group in Phnom Penh….. Khieu Samphan is also of ethnic Chinese blood, but the Khmer Rouge felt themselves to be Khmer and it was the vitriolic paranoid protection of the Khmer nationality that was, in their own twisted view, their motivation.
Many of my close Khmer frineds are of partly Chinese extraction ….. But in no way feel themselves to be anything less than 100% Khmer and few would actually class themselves as Chinese Khmer who are seen as being a distinct group within Khmer society.
Anyway, you have opened up a very interesting line of thought here….
The ruling establishment in Thailand is even more identifiably of Chinese character….. Sonthi Lim, Thaksin and Abhisit only barely count as Thai in many ways and Chinese allegiances to original roots run strong…… And yes…. It is part of ‘him’ too….. In many ways those of Chinese ethnicity run both sets of the presently warring elites in Thailand….. The established ruling elite and the newly mercantile elite….. Sonthi is, of course, part of the latter gunning for the former because someone else has bigger toys in his pram.
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# 10
Ralph
“but I also author a FP book on Cambodia”….”the coup, his abuse of power and some of the other detail you mention above.”
No need to send me your FP book on cambodia… I author enough of these bloody things myself thanks.
There was no coup though really was there?…. And this is an area where Adams gets it wrong, saying that Hun Sen made moves against FUNCINPEC because of fears of losing the up coming election. It was actually more about defections from the final units of Anlong Veng Khmer Rouge and Rannariddh’s overtures to them……
“I once interviewed one of his former lower-ranking officers who was with Hun Sen/Vietnamese when they invaded.”
Whats his name?….. I might know him.
“I am also in the process of reading the former UK Labour Party MP, Chris Mullin’s diaries.”
Never met him or read his diaries…. Although I have met plenty of Khmer Rouge, both those with pens and those without……
“Relations with the Khmer Rouge and the Thais were close”
Indeed they were…. The Thais were the cypher once the coalition was in place and they tightly controlled access to Anlong Veng right until the end.
“In my view Brad Adams’ line is clearly just a parroting of US foreign policy in the region.”
Or they happen to coincide…..
“Has Adams ever called for US govt and military people to be fully investigated for their criminal bombing of Cambodia?”
Is that a part of his job remit?
“In my view we can’t single one villain out whilst ignoring the context and other, equally brutal, perpetrators.”
There are many villains in Cambodia and few in politics are not villains… The ones who are not, like Om Radsady perhaps, may just end up getting shot down in cold blood…..
Which brings us back to huma rights in Cambodia…. And the recent killing of Chut Wutty….. And exactly who runs Cambodia in a traditionally brutal style….. Something that no human rights group can or should ignore….
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Dan
Ralph is someone else.
Yeah it’s weird how sometimes HRW and US govt lines are identical. In Thailand it is uncanny.
I was always struck by the huge amount of coverage HRW gave to the dodgy claims of Gadaffi’s use of cluster munitions while they were completely silent when US allies, Thailand fired them at Cambodia last year.
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OWWB, #11: Note I was talking about churches, not temples – absorbed as i was with my thesis that in the home village of every historical Indochinese thug/despot/odiousfigure, you always find a Catholic church. The last straw came last October when I took a left down the river bank just before entering Kampong Thom. I was on a quest to find Saloth Sar’s house but just 60 seconds down that path wouldn’t you know … Catholics!
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#17 Jon
“absorbed as i was with my thesis that in the home village of every historical Indochinese thug/despot/odiousfigure, you always find a Catholic church.”
Beg pardon Jon…. and Hail Mary of course….. And Indochinese despots did tend to hail from Indochina on the whole and the French did tend to knock these things up willy nilly along with a Post Office and a local prison… There are a few corkers scattered about…. KR blew up the big one in Phnom Penh of course…. Do you know when the one in Kompong Thom dates back to?
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Dan: Ralph who?
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Oops, sorry, OWWB….
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