Forward by School of Vice
A glance at the headline immediately below here would seem to suggest that this is yet another repeated instance of wishful thinking from hopelessly misguided, if well-intentioned, observers.
What exactly do we mean by "Cambodian politicians"? Unless we are mistaken Cambodian politics is broadly divided into two camps: 1- those who reign and rule the nation, and 2- those who aspire to reign and rule the nation. Now the fundamental issue is not whether their respective differing views pose such an obstacle as to mean that the country can not move forward unless those views and differences of the two camps can somehow be converged to form a working consensus for the nation's overriding benefit as well as offering a panacea for the on-going political crisis.
However one chooses to look at it, January 7th is more than a date in the national calendar of Cambodia. It is in essence a political-ideological blueprint in terms of what is allowed and what is disallowed in the nation's political life, including not only views and sentiments of politicians of either camps [try redefine the meaning of this historic date - if one is a CPP-aligned politician - and see what will happen!] but also the overall freedom, rights and movements of politicians as well as non-politicians themselves as enshrined or spelled out in the National Constitution.
In fact, to even entertain the notion that such differences in view-point can be accommodated in any way is to miss the point given the complete and enforced absence of any platform or scope through which the two sets of political protagonists could work out their differences.
This 'schism' underlying the present national crisis [well, this CPP regime does not see it as a 'crisis' at all, and that's another case in point, surely? What's the crisis, let alone its causes, if it is not even acknowledged as so?] can be likened to that experienced between wives and husbands everywhere. With the interests of the children and the family's happiness in mind, couples will usually strive to overcome their disagreements the best way they can, including accepting personal sacrifices at expense of their respective sense of pride or ego in order to advance those overriding interests and objectives. However, as far as Cambodia's politics is concerned what we have learned and understood ever since that date marking the advent of the CPP's rule is that the head of this "family" not only fails to consider and allow the interests of the children to figure in his thoughts every time a crisis occurs, rather he has always chosen to make material ransoms of them or use them as his human shield and bargaining tools in his callous effort to retain the reins over them and justify his despotic rule.
In other words, it is a "win-win" situation for the man in charge. Sadly, he is the only beneficiary of that situation, and that is to put it mildly!
***
Cambodian politicians should move beyond their arguments over history and find common ground to move Cambodia forward.
By Kimkong Heng
January 16, 2019
D
Image Credit: Pixabay
On January 7, 2019, Cambodia celebrated the 40th anniversary of its “Victory Day” over the Khmer Rouge regime, which was overthrown in 1979 by the Vietnamese army, accompanied by a number of Khmer Rouge defectors. January 7, 1979 was a historic day that marked the end of a regime that killed an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians. Despite its historic importance, January 7 has been interpreted differently, creating two dominant political narratives or myths in Cambodia: one supporting this historic day and another seeking to undermine it.
For the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen, January 7 is not only considered as either “Liberation Day” or “Victory Day” but also as a “second birthday” for the Cambodian people. However, for the ruling party’s detractors, particularly Sam Rainsy, the self-exiled leader of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), January 7 is the day that Vietnam invaded and occupied Cambodia until 1989. Both political leaders and their followers have been at odds over their interpretations of this contentious day. They have viewed it alternately as the liberation or occupation of Cambodia by its traditional enemy and neighbor, Vietnam. The “January 7” rhetoric has dominated Cambodian politics since the collapse of the Khmer Rouge.
![Tens of thousands of people thronged the streets for Chea Vichea's funeral after he was assassinated on January 22, 2014. The killers have still not been found [File: Andy Eames/AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/1/21/537b9898b7cc4587b61b0d1b2c2f24b2_18.jpg)
