The Leaderboard: Sam Rainsy

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 Sam Rainsy. Source: fnfbangkok's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.  The Leaderboard profiles the people behind the policies of the Asia-Pacific. This post features Sam Rainsy the President of the Cambodian Democratic Movement of National Rescue. Who is he? Sam Rainsy is the long-time leader of Cambodia’s opposition movement. He lived in exile in France, where he worked in the private sector from 1965 until 1992. He returned to Cambodia and became minister of finance following the 1993 UN-sponsored elections, but was dismissed from his post as well as from the National Assembly in 1995. Rainsy faced defamation charges following his self-imposed exile to France in 2005 for accusing the ruling coalition of the Cambodian People’s Party and Funcinpec of corruption. He also implicated Prime Minister Hun Sen in a deadly 1997 grenade attack on a rally led by his Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the killing of demonstrators during the 1998 national elections. Rainsy returned to Cambodia in 2006 after receiving a royal pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni at Hun Sen’s request. He remains one of the government’s most outspoken critics. Why is he in the news? Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha, leader of the second-largest opposition party, the Human Rights Party, announced July 16 that their organizations will merge to form a new Cambodian Democratic Movement of National Rescue, to contest national elections in 2013. Rainsy will need all the support he can muster after Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party won an overwhelming victory in local elections in June. The SRP’s poor showing underscored a growing cynicism toward the party, even among many who oppose Hun Sen. What can we expect from him? Sam Rainsy will lead the new coalition party on much the same platform as the SRP: anti-corruption, nationalism, and justice for the poor. However, the merger with the HRP suggests in the National Assembly elections next year he will focus more attention on the last of these than the first two. Rainsy will pay particular attention to hot button issues like labor rights and land evictions, which will give his coalition its best chance to score points against the ruling party.

Don’t Count ASEAN Out Posted: 26 Jul 2012 By Ernie Bower  [Editor's Note: In the post below, CSIS Southeast Asia Program director Ernie Bower responds to Hugh White's blog post over at The Interpreter on ASEAN's recent meetings at Phnom Penh, which references his earlier commentary published for the CSIS Southeast Asia program here. cogitASIA has also linked in a previous post to Carl Thayer's 'behind the scenes' account of the meetings written for AsiaTimesOnline here.] Sincere thanks to our creative and thoughtful brethren at the Lowy Institute in Sydney for penning and posting thoughts and responses to my commentary on China revealing its hand favoring a weakened ASEAN at the Phnom Penh meetings a fortnight ago. Hugh White’s blog post is wholesome until he ascribes Washington’s motives as “trying to use ASEAN to erode Beijing’s influence in Asia by exacerbating China’s self-inflicted problems with its Southeast Asian neighbors.”  This is plainly not true. Washington’s objective isn’t eroding Beijing’s influence in Asia.  That is a losing proposition no matter how you cut it, and despite Hugh’s lack of faith in US strategy, the bench here is just not that thin.  In fact, the plan is to encourage a strong ASEAN – this will take time, investment and patience all around – as a foundation for regional frameworks that convince China that it is not in its best interests to use its growing economic power to coerce smaller countries in disputes involving sovereign territory and related issues. The country that took the worst hit in Phnom Penh was clearly China.  Everyone in the region wants a fast growing China that will continue to boost trade and investment numbers and help propel Asia further into the forefront of global expansion.  But the limits of that growth could eventually be defined by China’s treatment of its neighbors and how is answers the question on everyone’s mind: “What does China want to be?” Being miserably pessimistic about ASEAN is a hackneyed position.  There is something important going on in ASEAN, and that can be demonstrated by Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa’s pan ASEAN mission after the Phnom Penh debacle.  The region knows it must work together to compete with China and India, and by playing such a rough hand in Cambodia, China has again triggered the natural ASEAN anti-bodies to an aggressive and very large neighbor.

Behind the Scenes of ASEAN’s Breakdown Posted: 26 Jul 2012 By Carl Thayer [Editor’s Note: Dr. Carl Thayer is one of the distinguished scholar mavens who tracks developments in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia. His description of the widely discussed AMM meeting in Phnom Penh makes for fascinating reading. With his permission we have posted an excerpt of the account. For the full article on Asia Times Online please go here] Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa recently conducted an intense round of shuttle diplomacy, visiting Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia in order to secure agreement on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea. When asked by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to sum up the results of his efforts he replied it was “back to business as usual”. Natalegawa meant that he had managed to overcome the appearance of ASEAN disarray when the grouping’s foreign ministers were unable to reach agreement on four paragraphs on the South China Sea to be included in a draft joint communique to summarize the results of their meeting. The Cambodia-hosted event represented the first time in the bloc’s 45-year history that an ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) failed to agree on a joint statement. Natalegawa stood alongside Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Hor Namhong when he issued ASEAN’s six-point statement. Hor Namhong, however, could not resist laying the blame for ASEAN’s failure to issue a joint communique on Vietnam and the Philippines, the two ASEAN countries that have clashed most openly with China on contested claims to the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia also have disputes with China over particular bits of the maritime area. The record of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) Retreat, however, tells a different story. According to notes of the discussions drawn up by a participant which this author has reviewed, Cambodia twice rejected attempts by the Philippines, Vietnam and other ASEAN members to include a reference to recent developments in the South China Sea. Each time Cambodia threatened that it would withhold the joint communique. The South China Sea issue was discussed during the plenary session of the AMM Retreat. There could, however, be another meaning behind Natalegawa’s expression that ASEAN is “back to business as usual”. This second meaning could be a vague reference to China’s renewed assertiveness in seeking to exercise its jurisdiction over the South China Sea. This has taken three forms. First, China has raised Sansha from county to prefecture level and given it administrative responsibility over the Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank and Spratly Islands. Indeed, Hainan provincial authorities rushed to appoint local officials to this new unit, and elections will be held to select representatives to the National People’s Congress. Second, China’s southern Hainan province soon thereafter dispatched 30 trawlers and four escort vessels to fish in the waters in the Spratly Islands. The fleet first fished off Fiery Cross Reef before moving to Johnson South Reef, both contested areas. Third, and most significantly, China’s Central Military Commission issued a directive establishing a military garrison in Sansha prefecture. This garrison, with its headquarters based at Woody Island, will have responsibility for national defense of an area covering two million square miles of water. Dr. Carl A. Thayer is Emeritus Professor,  School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy.