បក្សកាន់អំណាចចាត់ទុកក្រុមប្រឆាំងដែលរារាំងដល់ការអភិវឌ្ឍប្រទេសថាជាក្រុមជ្រ...

Khmer Circle: 

When Cambodia's national constitution was drafted, its architects [foreigners as well as Khmers like Sihanouk and leaders of other non-Communist factions] would have entertained the most sanguine of expectations and dreams that its core provision whereby the country 'shall follow multi-party liberal democracy' would suffice to at least ensure that single-party dictatorship and rule by the guns would be a thing of the past? Yet, even before the ink dried on the constitution and the Paris Peace Accords and, even as Sihanouk and his followers hailed the nation's resumption of stability and a new era of  'peace' and 'development' before a war-weary population, many were already feeling and dreading that the Khmer people were being led down once again by his flawed, premature stance and misplaced optimism as well as his naive rush to appease the Hanoi-backed CPP and yield to its demands or threats in his blind pursuit of those ends. 

Sihanouk himself - who had rejected the chance to have the country ruled democratically or to abide by a system of multi-party parliamentary democracy throughout his long stay in power in 1950s and 1960s – can hardly be expected to, perhaps, fully grasp that vital provision in the constitution, and unsurprisingly, the only mention has since been made of his legacy by CPP apologists is that he believed that national rebuilding and 'development' to be paramount; something Hun Sen and his cronies now cite as their excuse and pretext for undermining the constitution and violating the principle of multi-party political system as they continue to cripple opposition forces.   

How can it be otherwise with regard to laying a solid foundation for democracy where even the protagonists - communist and non-communist - themselves had had [and still have] only a vague and visceral understanding of what democracy is? And even if these individuals did genuinely wish to follow that lofty model, would they then be allowed to do so by the more populous state next door to the east? Wouldn't their still struggling, traditionally politically oppressed or autocratically ruled people of almost a hundred million also have cause to demand similair freedom and liberty?

^^^