Ms. Theary Seng in front of the Royal Palace.January 11, 2012
By Theary Seng
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post
Dear Editor,
January 7 is indeed a significant day for survivors of the Khmer Rouge. It arrested the macabre convulsions that would have swallowed all of us into a hellish hole if the Vietnamese military had not intervened.
It is a bittersweet day of commemoration through invasion.
And now, unfortunately, it is a day propagandised to be solely the Day of Liberation, neatly sweeping away the equally important fact of it being simultaneously the inaugurating day of an occupation that would last for the next decade.
That occupation began with the barricading of Phnom Penh to facilitate the plundering of its wealth by convoys of trucks heading to Vietnam and the mass crimes of the K5 plan.
My hairdresser remembers returning from Battambang to his home in Boeung Keng Kang I on February 3, 1979, only to find that all the wealthy neighbourhoods of villas and jewellery stores were still barricaded off.
It was an occupation cut short only by the meltdown of the Cold War – specifically, the break-up of the Soviet Union, which funded the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.
The rewriting of history in this manner by the current regime is fraught with danger for the longevity of Cambodian stability and peace.
Cycles of past grievances that touch on national identity and humiliation run deep in any society, and no less in Cambodia. Think of the Khmer Kampuchea Kroms and their current suffering and struggles. Think of the underpinnings for the bloodletting in the former Yugoslavia.
It’s not only on January 7 that the regime is revising history to fit its narrow political agenda. The political interference in the Khmer Rouge tribunal speaks to the same dangers.
This regime never wanted the KRT, but once it was inevitable and the regime was confident of its control over the mechanisms of the process, it did everything to achieve and protect its twin goals: to go down in history as the government that put the Khmer Rouge on trial and, concurrently, to erase its own Khmer Rouge history and crimes.
With the United Nations’ stamp of approval, the CPP regime is achieving exactly that.
No counterbalancing, competing narratives are permitted or have the resources and official, institutional dissemination systems to match it.
Thus, January 7 is paradoxical for Cambodians who are simultaneously survivors of the Khmer Rouge, survivors of the K5 plan under the Vietnamese occupation, and continuing survivors of a regime that desperately needs to whitewash its history of the Khmer Rouge and has indebted political ties to Vietnam – a dangerous liaison, in light of the two countries’ historical enmity over territorial annexation.
Stated differently, January 7 is a paradoxical and conflicting date for us who are Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian victims of the Vietnamese occupation and Cambodian victims of a regime with unhealthy political and historical ties to both the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese military.
January 7 initially made us deliriously grateful, then wearily suspicious. That is the tension.
Theary C. Seng
Founding President
CIVICUS: Center for Cambodian Civic Education
5 comments:
We are perhaps in a predicament circumstances for us all, Cambodian.
"We damn if we do and We damn if we don't" in relation to the date of January 7.
Let all of us accepting that the Pol Pot regimes were the most ravaging and plundering to any mankind unimaginable in the history of the world we lived in, and in particularly, historically and unfortunately to our people. Anyone, that come to our rescues at the time would be cordially receptive by any of us. On the other hand, and historically there were correlations between the Vietnamese and our Cambodian people and particularly the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge since the very early establishment of the Khmer Rouge by the King Sihanouk. What kind of sweetheart deals our leaders had with the Vietnamese at the time. Unfortunately, for our Cambodian people, we will never know the truth, we can only speculate.
Then came the January 7, 1979, the day some called invasion and occupation of the Vietnamese, the plans by the Vietnamese government that they engraved in stone for a very long time and set for action as an opportunist to devour our country and to extinct our people, and that was the time for them, January 7, 1979. Of course to the world and to a few of us truly see January 7, the Vietnamese as the "Liberator", the rescuer of our people from the most horrific regime in the world history, and we should endlessly thanks the Vietnamese people and their government.
Now, whose to say whether or not to agree and to disagree, to support or to oppose to the commemoration of January 7, it is up to each individual belief.
I am a younger generation, I will never know the true about our history and so do millions of our people,the correlation, agreements, and the history between us and the Vietnamese. But one thing that I am sure of that the "Vietnamese Never Had Good Intention with Us", they always practicing deception on our innocent Khmer for their benefits.
But again, I think to support or to oppose the Jan. 7, is irrelevant. The significance matters is the future of our country and people. Can we all starting to trust each others?, Can we all starting to work with each others?, Can we learn from our mistakes of the past for the better?, Can we stop any influences from any foreigner?,
If we're all starting to implement these agenda and not to sway from any distraction, WE, KHMER WILL SURVIVE.
Hat off to you Mara M. M. Well said and it is not boring.
Why is it that when our leader die or replaced we lose khmer krom and now we lose koh trol to the yuon without major war with them. It seems that every time our leader were picked by the yuon we lose land without major blood to our ordinary people but at the same time khmer are killing khmer.khmer hate khmer,khmer ditrust khmer,,,,,and the world only see us as a villian to our own people but not those that stole our land. Why???????
12 January 2012 6:56 PM, you are so passionate and very sincere in posing your question. But are you ready for my also passionate and sincere answer?
There were/are many reasons but I point out only two.
-Khmers were/are ល្ងង់តែធ្វើជាចេះ
-Khmers rarely has real self-sacrificed for the future of our nation before self-ego first.
What I'm just stated also hold true for myself especially the part of ល្ងង់តែធ្វើជាចេះ .
who gonna read your comments it too long ar pler.
Post a Comment