A Change of Guard

សូមស្តាប់វិទ្យុសង្គ្រោះជាតិ Please read more Khmer news and listen to CNRP Radio at National Rescue Party. សូមស្តាប់វីទ្យុខ្មែរប៉ុស្តិ៍/Khmer Post Radio.
Follow Khmerization on Facebook/តាមដានខ្មែរូបនីយកម្មតាម Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/khmerization.khmerican

Saturday 2 June 2012

10,000 Days of Hun Sen

By BRAD ADAMS 
The New York Times
Published: May 31, 2012

“I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.”  

No, this was not Muammar el-Qaddafi in his infamous “cockroach” speech in 2011, when he urged his supporters to go “house to house” to kill the opposition. The speaker was Prime Minister Hun Sen (pictured) of Cambodia, responding with typically threatening language to the suggestion by a Cambodian critic that he should be worried about the overthrow of a dictator in Tunisia.
Often overlooked in discussions about the world’s most notorious autocrats, on Friday Hun Sen will join the “10,000 Club,” a group of strongmen who through politically motivated violence, control of the security forces, massive corruption and the tacit support of foreign powers have been able to remain in power for 10,000 days.
With the fall of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, the ranks of the 10,000 Club have been depleted, making Hun Sen one of the 10 longest-serving political leaders in the world.
A former Khmer Rouge commander, Hun Sen has proven to be a highly intelligent and ruthless leader, able to keep his domestic opponents and international critics off balance. His main tactic has been the threat and use of force.
For example, when the then largest-ever United Nations peacekeeping force entered Cambodia to implement the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, Hun Sen and his party mobilized the security forces to intimidate and attack opposition party members. More than 100 opposition party members were killed under the U.N.’s nose.
In March 1997 his personal bodyguard unit colluded in a grenade attack on a rally led by the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, in which 16 people died and more than 150 were injured. Because an American citizen was wounded, the F.B.I. was sent to investigate. Its chief investigator concluded that the chain of command led to the prime minister.
Months later, fearful of losing the next election, Hun Sen staged a coup against his royalist coalition partners. Units under his command committed more than 100 extrajudicial killings. My U.N. colleagues and I dug up bodies of men stripped to their underwear, handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head. No one has ever been held accountable.
One of the most acute problems in Cambodia now is a massive land grab by Hun Sen’s cronies through what the government calls “economic land concessions.” This has led to widespread protests, but they carry severe risks.
In April, Chut Wutty, Cambodia’s best-known environmental activist, was gunned down while researching illegal timber sales. The government first claimed he died in a shootout, then that he had been killed by a soldier who had subsequently managed to commit suicide by shooting himself twice in the chest. Last week, 13 women protesting their forced eviction from prime real estate in Phnom Penh — sold by the government to a crony company and its Chinese partner — were whisked off to court and summarily sentenced to prison terms.
Widespread corruption is the subject that makes Cambodians most angry. Though Hun Sen has worked only for the Cambodian government since 1979, he appears to be fabulously wealthy. Ten years ago a U.S. State Department official told me the U.S. government estimated his personal wealth at $500 million. When I repeated this figure last year to a different U.S. official, he said, “Is that all?”
Today Hun Sen rules Cambodia with an iron fist, a fact that no Phnom Penh diplomat would dispute, but few confront. He has forced opposition leader Sam Rainsy into exile after orchestrating a prison sentence of 10 years for an act of nonviolent protest. The country goes through the trauma of manipulated elections every five years in which no one imagines that the vote will be free and fair or that an electoral defeat would result in Hun Sen leaving power.
In 1998, after government-manipulated elections, tens of thousands of protesters poured into Phnom Penh’s streets. In a Tahrir Square-style show of defiance, they set up a “Democracy Square” in a park and demanded a recount or new elections. Hun Sen ultimately sent in his shock troops and cleared the park. Western governments muttered their disapproval but did nothing. When Cambodians had their “Khmer Spring,” the world let them down.
At 59, Hun Sen is the youngest member of the 10,000 Club. He has said that he wants to rule until he is 80. After all the pious post-Arab Spring diplomatic talk about confronting dictatorships, Cambodians can be forgiven for asking why no one seems to be paying attention while Hun Sen begins work on his next 10,000 days.
Brad Adams is Asia director at Human Rights Watch and worked as a lawyer with the United Nations in Cambodia.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

After Syria, is it time for Cambodia?

Anonymous said...

Gaddafi has gone, Hun Sen is next.

Anonymous said...

i only know the most insecure dog barks the most...this dog barks a lot because its time will come soon

Anonymous said...

Hun Sen is intelligent ?
He is more than stupid !

A so called leader kills and steals from his own countrymen to serve his own country's enemy, Yuon.

Anonymous said...

Hun Sen is the reincarnation of Adoft Hitler

They are both dictators
They believe in superstition
They killed their own people
They are stuburn and trust noone
They came to power by crook and blood
They both believe that noone can substitute them in their respective countries, they were sent by God to lead their respective countries
Hitler believed that he did nothing wrong, even before he commit suicide he wrote a political testimonial saying that he did nothing wrong to Germans and to the world
Hun Sen believes that he is doing the right thing for Cambodia.
Hun Sen will die the way as Hitler.

Usa

Anonymous said...

After the war in the 70's and the genocidal regime in 1975-79,in which 1/4 of the population were killed,Cambodian people were subsequenly felt into Hanoi's Hands for 10 years.
CCP is the regime that was designed hy Hanoi.Cambodian people were exausted by war and most of all the interlectuals or the braved ones were killed by the Khmer Rough.
Today we have this stupid leader Hun Sen,because Cambodia have not produced enough interlectual people in the country to counter this installed regime.
However,the corruptions and the injustice that inflicted by Hun Sen and his cronies are creating a new rapid climate for change.
A braved new world is being borned,as you see,there are more and more growing buds of opposition supporters are fighting hard to pull Cambodia back into the right path of freedom and democracy.
We understand that Hun Sen is enjoying his one horse raising,with his kidnaped spectators,but believe it or not,this atmospheare could be easily desolved or changed rapidly,and then he and his cronies will end up like Muammar El-Quaddafi of Libia.

The wheel of Democracy is an unstopable force.
Those who live by the swords will die by the swords.

True Khmer

Anonymous said...

Huncent will dies the Gadafi of Lybia dies,his copse will be dragged on the pp street if Huncent keep on doing what he has done lately to his own people,time will tell how long a strong man will live or dies.

Khmer

Anonymous said...

What goes up must come down, what goes around must come around. None one cane live forever and therefore no one will rule forever. They must die one and that they will fall from power and from grace one day.

Adolf Hitler, one of the world's strongest and most brutal leaders, who seemed to be unstoppable and invincible, was defeated and at the end had to commit suicide. Saddam Hussein, also seemed invincible, but was defeated and hanged at the end. Gaddafi was the same. With huge wealth and huge cache of modern weapons, including modern fighter jets, seemed invincible, but at the end he was lynched by the very own people whom he had oppressed and brutalized for decades.

The same will happen to Hun Sen. Although, he seemed to be too certain that he is undefeatable, he will one day meet the same fate as these dictators I have just described above. The Cambodian has a saying "domrei cheung bourn kong te mean plort, neak prach chess stort kong te mean plich" (a four-legged elephant can still fall, a highly-learned scholar still do forget). Here is another saying "kmean nak na chass sork te" (no one will shade their skin like a snake and become young again"- meaning no one will live forever.

In other word, everyone must succumb to the law of nature- which means there is a cycle of life- birth, sickness and death- it means when someone was born they will get sick and get old and die one day.

Hun Sen cannot avoid the law of nature. He will die one day and will fall from power one day.

Hun Sen had committed numerous crimes against his own people and, if we believe in the law of Karma, he will be at the receiving end of the law of Karma or his karmic actions one day.

The bad deeds that he did in the past will return back to condemn him one day.

Anonymous said...

I cannot agree more to all the great comments and analysis above. But we cannot wait for Karma law to punish him. There are signs that he could not stay any longer in power:
1. He's not truthfull to Hanoi as before, Hanoi will change horse anytime soon when it can find a more stupid horse than Hun Sen;
2. He could not control and stop his staff from rampant corruption;
3. He could not find a better land policy to stop land grabbing and forced evictions;
4. Revenues from garment sector,fishing and natural resources are dramatically decreasing;
5. He own favour to all teacherous tycoons such as Yay Phou, Yay Phan and Mong Rithy. So, basically state power is in their hands.Napoleon said that when a state owns money the rich bankers, it is the rich bankers that control the state.
6. Unemployement is increasing, poverty and starvation are prevelent all rural areas throughout the country;
7. Tade imbalance is the major problem that he has no capability to tackle; and
8. Cambodia's economy would be collapse anytime soon.

So, Hun Sen is unluckly to wait for Karma law to punish him; he is unlikely to die of ripe old age.

Usa

Anonymous said...

Its tskes too long for karma to do its process...We can't wait that long let try a new way,the Chhun Yasith way...! Are you with me?..

Karma,takes another thirty years to do it will for Huncent to go to hell where he belong,more and more khmers will be homeless landless....

Get up fight this evil head on......don't run away...don't be afraid...don't worry...die for your country, your people that is herois heroism.They can(Cpp) might say that you are terrorism but you are not,you are a liberator....

Anonymous said...

While SRP said that Cambodians died of starvation, Hun Sen said that those people died because they didn't breath! sic

KI september 2005

The top 2 photos show Mrs. Loeuk Vân whose newborn child is highly malnourished due to her inability to produce breast milk caused by starvation. RFA reported that she starts producing small amount of milk again after having food to eat.

On Friday, September 23, 2005, Hun Sen said in a speech that people living in the Ta Moeun area - whom RFA and VOA reported of dying of starvation - were not starving, but had likely died of old age, disease and suicide. The day before Hun Sen's speech, the Sam Rainsy Party organized food relief for the area, largely paying for it with money raised by overseas Cambodians.

Anonymous said...

Hun Sun is god of Cambodia.
and live long the Hun Sun