Of mice and men

 

Former Cambodia National Rescue Party members (L-R) Kang Kimhak, Tep Sothy, Ou Chanroth, Chan Seyla, and Chiv Kata give a news conference about their decision to request political 'rehabilitation' in Phnom Penh, March 25, 2019. rfa

 

 

Op-ed by Khmer Circle

 

Had we not been here before? It’s a familiar, depressing vicious cycle or de ja vu for the Khmer people but, rewarding occasion for turncoats and traitors who see politics as just another platform for personal gains and material advancements. 

Hun Sen and his Vietnamese mentors had deployed pretty much the same carrot and stick methods in the past with which to neutralise and eliminate anyone or groups posing tangible threats to their iron grip over this small nation. The elimination of what they had labelled ‘KR remnants’ and later on, the royalist Funcinpec party, especially, at leadership levels were the perfect results and casualties of those methods.
 

The Paris Peace Accords and the adopted national Constitution posed a grave threat to not only Hun Sen’s CPP regime but, also to his sponsors in Hanoi because the existence of a liberal democracy [Cambodia’s constitution is – on paper – among the world’s most liberal] on their doorsteps would undermine Vietnam’s own archaic single party ideology and system that – thus far – has served the Politburo so well in keeping the masses of still largely impoverished Vietnamese of over ninety millions inline and as an extension of that country’s feudalistic rulership while the revival and resurgence of Cambodian nationalism would also inevitably mean raised territorial issues for Cambodia and Vietnam the land-predator that Hanoi would rather be kept under the carpet and off legal international radar. Why fix something that is not broken, eh? 

So, the campaign to undermine and sabotage the PPA and the political factions formerly hostile to the Hanoi-imposed CPP regime began early and in full swing: high-ranking military officials and commanders of these factions were bribed with cash, cars equipped with chauffeurs as personal forms of transport for their convenience along with the stars on their uniforms. Politicians – particularly those of the then contending and later ruling Funcinpec party - were similarly feted with villas and other perks while the flesh industry worked hard to provide them with comforts and pastimes of another primordial, timeless kind! Of course, most of these gifts and inducements would be subsequently withdrawn once the individuals’ parties and movements had been liquidated or dissolved. Military ranking ‘reforms’ saw most of the former non-Communist military commanders either stripped off their stars, forced into early retirement or drastically demoted in command. Only those who switched sides completely and swore their allegiance to the CPP would be allowed to continue to reap their rewards and even prosper under their new party’s privileged, protective wings.   

 

As of the ‘stick’ method, we know how many who had refused to bow to the CPP’s wishes would eventually end up in shallow graves on the outskirt of the capital or had been forced into overseas exile.