Sam Rainsy's letter to King-Father

Click on the original letter in French to zoom in

Translated from French
Courtesy of Ki-Media

To the Highest Attention of
His Majesty King-Father
Preah Karuna Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk

Royal Residence
Beijing
People’s Republic of China

Phnom Penh, 02 September 2008

Revered Preah Karuna,

I am taking the liberty to very respectfully write to You, as well as to Her Majesty Queen-Mother, to express once again my and my wife’s filial devotion.

However, it is in front of the Father the Nation that I am requesting, in the name of some 1.3 million Khmer citizens who voted for the Sam Rainsy Party last 27 July, and begging You to intervene, in one way or another, in order to save our Homeland in danger.

Cambodia is currently facing simultaneous problems of utmost seriousness since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. Along with the discrete but sustained nibbling of our territory for the past 30 years by our neighbors from all sides, now comes the open border conflict with Thailand – a conflict which is becoming more and more widespread and which could have terrible and countless repercussions on our hapless country.

To the external crisis, now comes a new internal crisis – which on the morrow of dubious and ever more contested than before election – could divide even more so deeply our country and bring her to the brink of a new abyss, or at the very least, could push her ever farther from the path of democracy path which Cambodia is supposed to follow according to the 1991 Paris Agreements, along with all the dangers involved.

In any case, an insolent and deceitful prosperity benefiting a small group of privileged people cannot hide the fact that ordinary people are screaming out their hunger, and that the thunder of revolution is rumbling. How could it be otherwise when the poorest farmers are being robbed of their lands in ever larger number; when there is no forest left or accessible fishing zones left for these farmers to earn some income or some supplementary food as they did in the past; when hundreds of thousands of youths find themselves without a job, income or hope, each year; when officials extort money from you in every administrative offices or at every street corners; when the salaries of civil servants, factory workers and employees are desperately stagnating, and when inflation is galloping at a dizzying speed while sapping relentlessly the purchasing power of low income citizens who cannot even make ends meet?

Our country must not founder like a sinking boat and our people must not die like a stray dog. This is the reason why, in the name of all Cambodians who still have a national conscience, I implore You to undertake a new Crusade to save the Khmer Nation, in your name as the Father of the Nation, the Father of National Independence, the Father of National Unity and Reconciliation, the Father of the Territorial Integrity of Cambodia (geographic maps established under the Sangkum Reastr Niyum must serve as the basis for the defense of our land and maritime borders), the Supreme Craftsman achieving the 1962 victory over Thailand with respect to the Preah Vihear temple, and the most eminent Signatory of the 1991 Paris Agreements.

Please accept, revered Preah Karuna, my deepest gratitude and my indestructible devotion.

(Signed) Sam Rainsy