A Self-destructive Trait

Alternatives Watch – 20viii09
A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TRAIT

Cambodia clings to a trait that has proved to be arguably self-destructive. For whatever reason, Khmers fight it out among themselves to the end; yet, when facing foreign challengers they become submissive, if not passive.
There seems to be a need for prime minister Hun Sen to display his undisputed power by bashing his critics. His latest boast is that his army can take full control of Phnom Penh in just two hours, leaving his opponents no room to hide. The court he controls has sent them into hiding, exile, or forced dissembling apologies. His security forces are mainly for cracking down demonstrations and evicting the poor from their land targeted for redevelopment.
Conversely, he displays enormous tolerance to foreign adversaries. He agrees with Thailand that the border dispute is to be resolved bilaterally and peacefully, allowing it to drag on, if not inconspicuously escalating. On the eastern front, the border demarcation has been left to Vietnam who is willing to provide cartographical and global positioning system technologies, softwares, and installation of border posts. As a majority shareholder in a new joint commercial venture, Cambodia Angkor Air, Hun Sen has left the whole business operation to Vietnam who appoints all Vietnamese to the entire board of directors. Even the Khmer language is missing from the airline’s website, which contains only Vietnamese and English.
The mass murder of the Khmer people was so undemanding that it must have made Pol Pot feel invincible to the extent that he would treat his arch-enemy Vietnam with contempt. Perhaps the snap Vietnamese military campaign that ousted the whole Khmer Rouge regime within weeks serves as reminder to Khmer leaders to keep their brutality for their own citizens.
The internal hostilities in the Lon Nol republican regime signify the urge within the elite to defeat each other, even when facing external threats. Their continuous conflicts marginalised their effort to fight two fronts in the country: the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge troops, which made their downfall predictable.
Sihanouk also exerted his unequivocal power onto his people. He orchestrated the national congress – legally it represented no one and had no judicial power – to summarily convict and sentence his opponents to death. The image of the opponents being shot by firing squads was filmed and shown in movie houses throughout the country. While the persecution of his Khmer opponents was definite and decisive, Sihanouk’s vital foreign policies were essentially based on hope. He backed and actively assisted Hanoi in the Vietnam War only with a hope that, upon their victory in South Vietnam, the communists would respect Cambodia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He had no ground plan to ensure Hanoi would honour its promise to respect and leave Cambodia out of its control.
This self-destructive trait is not limited to the above cases; the urge to beat their own kind at any price has been overwhelming for centuries. If there were some tolerance for Khmers and less blind submission to foreign adversaries, Cambodia could be pleasantly different.
Ung Bun Ang
Quotable Quote:
“Foreigners fooling about in others' civil wars are a menace. They excite baseless hope of a fair, lasting peace.” - Woodrow Wyatt (1918–1997), British journalist and writer. News of the World.