Of a ‘mad dog’ and its master

Kim Sok and his daughter

by School of Vice

In the annals of our often turbulent, blood soaked history, it is far from being unusual that vassal states found themselves in a position to have to accept imposed foreign rule through an appointed home grown puppet or despot. At times, such a puppet may have been more than a mere tool of that imposed rule, and may have sought to compensate the loss of self-determination and national sovereignty with the desire or instinct to pursue what would be within the best possible interest of the subjugated populace at large. 

Since the fall of the Angkor civilisation around the end of the 13th century, the Khmer people have had to endure this semi-autonomous rule with varying degrees of severity in terms of humiliation and national pain, and all these vicissitudes characterised by mass enslavement of ordinary people in answer to tributary demands exacted, the losses of territory, as well as the disintegration and decline in culture and morality generally, can be seen to have persisted right across the post Angkorian era, continuing through the French colonial time, and up into the present day.

What marks out Hun Sen and the regime he leads as an anomaly in that respect is not so much his ability to juggle all these conflicting tensions and demands [Sihanouk and other Khmer rulers had had to face up to these realities too], but sadly, it is rather his almost unique preponderance to execute whatever necessary to quell perceived anxieties of his foreign patrons, and more than that, to surpass most of his Khmer ruling predecessors in brutality, blood-thirst and national betrayal.

Everywhere one cares to look, the tentacles of imposed foreign suzerainty and its harms run deep; from mass deforestation that deprives the population of natural cover and protection, unprecedented ELCs, "Development Triangle" to foreign stakes in the economy and strategic national institutions. Even the semblance or facade of recent years of economic 'growth' that affords affluence to small segments of the population [which is often seized upon by some as vindication of the regime's presence] performs a role in fostering this false image of a country "heading in the right direction" and thus legitimising that reality of deeply entrenched foreign patronage and interference. The same 'luxury' and 'affluence' are the nation's most terminal and poisonous opiate and intoxication as these addictions afflict and cripple mainly and precisely those ranks and elements a nation in Cambodia's dire predicament relies upon the most to cure its ills, refute imposed rule and restore national survival and dignity. 

The afflicted encompass more than Sen and his immediate clans: government officials, party members, state administrators, the military, village heads etc. as well as the youth and former ‘enemies’ of the regime - these people have all succumbed to the snare that [if this trend persists to its logical conclusion] will have at some point in future left even them and their own biological offspring with nothing of substance to fall back on, but a bitter aftertaste. 

The person that is Mr Hun Sen may well be "a mad dog" to the Khmer people as Mr Kim Sok [pictured above with his daughter] recently insinuated, but he is - and remains - a priceless find to those who use him. After about three hundred years of intermittent attempts to bring this small country under its complete control [during which time they had been repelled by mass rebellions and other setbacks], the Vietnamese have finally found in Sen an ideal ally in the accomplishment of their dreams and desires. Had they instead found him in any of these preceding centuries, the last forty-seven years or so of their involvement in Cambodia would have yielded for them a much more favourable outcome and scenario. Indeed, Sen himself would not have survived this long since his instrumental utility would have been limited by a world far less integrated than it is now in every social, political respect in terms of international relations and alliances. To even prolong his own usefulness to his foreign patrons, Sen would have yearned for precisely the kind of patriotic forces and plurality in political engagement which he brazenly and assiduously consigns to oblivion and material irrelevance.

One suspects that it is largely thanks to the Vietnamese working through their numerous advisers attached to Sen that his inbred barbarism, savagery and insanity have not been allowed to escalate and or to take on a more cataclysmic proportion. This is not a reflection of the Vietnamese’s regard for the well-being of the Khmer people, but rather an indication of the patience they often display and value in overseeing matters of this nature, affording them time to fall into their evolutionary, dialectical pace and thus fulfilling a unified blue-print or master-plan.