RFA​ Khmer សម្ភាសន៍​លោក អេង ឆៃអ៊ាង ជុំវិញបទពិសោធន៍បន្ទាប់ពីតុលាការរម្លាយ...

 

Op-Ed by Khmer Circle:

 

This is rather flawed all round - whichever way one tries to see it, and coming from a prominent member of the CNRP leadership hierarchy too. When we speak of political party 'leadership' this usually refers to a group of individuals or leaders engaged in a common endeavour, driven by a shared vision and a set of aims and "strategies".
 

The only viable - still! - opposition force in the country and purportedly of democratic leanings and aspirations should be all the more conscious and accepting of the importance and necessity of consensus and collective decision-making by means of forward thinking, planning and dialogue. This means that no one supreme leader is so important or paramount that his/her absence or enforced inactivity must be allowed to harm or derail what the party supposedly stands for.
 

What do gangsters do when they look for ways to get the better of their rivals? Well, the first thing they want to know is: ‘What’s it like to be in my enemy’s shoes?’ Actually, these are the very question Hun Sen rhetorically posed in one of his few interviews with a Western reporter in the 1990’s and this also hints at his youthful years spent under his Vietnamese mentors’ guidance and tutelage. Finding out your adversaries’ weaknesses and strengths will be one approach to answering such a question. Hun Sen would have wanted to ensure that his threat to Kem Sokha went far beyond his individual person and that – more than likely - none among his close family members who remained within his reach could be guaranteed any form of safety themselves after his more than unsurprising or expected mid-night arrest and subsequent detention at a prison near Vietnam’s border. At any rate, Sokha's personal assets and properties could be at risk! Such things mean a great deal to many a Cambodian elite - in opposition or not - notwithstanding their protestation otherwise. 

 

That Hun Sen has never been one to shy from taking such underhanded measures in order to get ahead of his opponents is well documented. How much have these personal factors been allowed to feature in Sokha's political life and calculations; a person who otherwise appears or projects himself to the outside world as a self-sacrificing public figure who risks his life and liberty for the good of the country?  Yet, that kind of personal scenarios should have been factored into the opposition’s forward thinking well ahead of them materialising so that the party as a movement could continue to move forward with its “struggle” and, do so proactively having conceived the best possible escape route in response and readiness for each of those potential, hypothetical situations and eventualities.
 

This applies to other aspects and risks posed to the party as well, such as what to do in an event of a mass arrest or disfranchisement of party officials, functionaries and activists along with the dissolution of the opposition as a whole as a legal entity in the country’s political life. In armed combat or in war time, the sudden death or incapacitation of the commanding officer on duty normally means that the next person in command steps forward to assume the vacated responsibility and fill the vacuum. If Ho Chi-minh and other successful guerrilla leaders had not consulted with their lieutenants over such practical issues and contingencies, it is highly doubtful their plans and objectives would have come to fruition. The eventual conclusion of the US-Vietnam conflict in 1975 and the subsequent ‘re-unification’ of North and South Vietnam; what to do with Cambodia and Laos or the China-backed Pol Pot regime and so forth would have been among topics mulled over at great length and agreed between Ho and his immediate followers, many of whom may still be alive to this day and have since survived to see his blue-prints carried out to the letter – perhaps, albeit with minor adjustments.
 

Kem Sokha had once remarked with apparent pride or self-assurance that he was ready to ‘deal even with the Vietnamese’. Of course, to do that he will first need to put the opposition he co-leads into power. How ironic then that he should find himself repeatedly turned over so easily by their uneducated provincial stooge whom they installed in power over 40 years ago.  

 

🔺🔺🔺