Documentary recounting Hun Sen’s role in Vietnamese invasion divides opinion

Khmer Circle: Of course, Vietnam wouldn't stand idly by. Hanoi had given birth to Pol Pot, paving the way for him to seize power, and subsequently to put the Khmer nation to the sword on its behalf. Vietnam's armed intervention almost four years of this carnage and national annihilation was hardly unplanned or unanticipated. Let history be the judge...

Niem Chheng and Erin Handley | Publication date 04 January 2018 | 19:04 ICT

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A screenshot from the documentary Marching Towards National Salvation, which was broadcast on television and social media last night, in which Prime Minister Hun Sen recounts his defection from the Khmer Rouge and his return with a Vietnamese-backed force to re-take Phnom Penh. Facebook

“The prime minister said it, so we understand that it is accurate,” 

Phay Siphan

A glossy biopic of Prime Minister Hun Sen that premiered with much fanfare on Cambodian television last night has divided public opinion, with critics suggesting the documentary amounts to propaganda.

The 90-minute film, titled Marching Towards National Salvation, was also broadcast on social media, where it has so far clocked up more than 100,000 views.

Dramatic music accompanies the video, with Hun Sen frequently tearing up as he talks about defecting from the Khmer Rouge in 1977 and crossing into Vietnam, returning years later and re-taking Phnom Penh along with Vietnamese forces on January 7, 1979.

There are glaring historical omissions in the piece – for example, there is no mention of Pen Sovann, the first prime minister to be installed by the Vietnamese, who later became an opposition lawmaker. Hun Sen’s close political allies Heng Samrin and Chea Sim, however, are presented as key players.

There is also no mention of the significant aid given to the Khmer Rouge by China, currently Cambodia’s biggest donor, but there are several references to Hun Sen fighting against the “foreign invasion” of US bombing.

Former opposition leader Sam Rainsy called the omissions “an insult to history” and to the Cambodian people.

“The worst authoritarian regimes always promote [a] personality cult, which in turn leads to [the] distortion of historical facts,” he said. “This is nothing but pure and cheap propaganda that can be easily and expediently reshaped any time to suit the political objectives of the propagandists.”

However Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan defended the historical narrative.

“The prime minister said it, so we understand that it is accurate,” he said.

Online reactions varied, with some Facebook users accusing it of whitewashing history. Others, however, praised the premier, saying the documentary “shows the truth about the real history which Cambodian leaders went through”.