Phnom Penh Post
By Roger Mitton
US
President Barack Obama (L) toasts with Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun
Sen at an East Asia Summit dinner last week. Photograph: Reuters
Well, well, the big visit of United States President Barack Obama to
Phnom Penh for the East Asia Summit is over and “No Drama Obama” lived
up to his moniker.
Indeed, the whole shebang will be remembered not for his presence, but for the way Cambodia’s chairmanship caused yet another squabble among ASEAN members.
As at the July ministerial meeting, last week’s war of words was about failing to reach a consensus about whether they had reached a consensus about handling the South China Sea sovereignty disputes.
Yeah, really. Go figure.
In reality, the most important aspect of the summit was related to what Obama had said earlier in Yangon.
Lauding Myanmar’s reforms, he signalled to other recalcitrant regimes that America’s hand would be extended to them if they would also mend their ways.
“I want to send a message across Asia,” said Obama. “We don’t need to be defined by the prisons of the past, we need to look forward to the future.”
Echoing her boss, National Security Council adviser Samantha Power said: “The president is sending a signal to other countries where reform either is not happening or repression is happening.”
She added: “If you take these reform steps, we will meet you action for action.”
In a nutshell then, Obama visited Myanmar because Washington was gratified by its reforms and rewarded it accordingly.
Restrictions on its imports into the US were removed and a $170 million scheme was initiated to boost good governance and capacity building.
The flip side of the message was that he would avoid visiting other places that were perceived as not reforming, like Cambodia and Vietnam.
Oh, but you will say he visited Cambodia.
Yes, but as the New York Times noted: “Obama made clear he came only because Cambodia happened to be the site for a summit meeting of Asian leaders.”
If the EAS has been held elsewhere, he would have given Phnom Penh a wide berth because of the government’s shoddy human rights record.
Obliged to spend a day here, he shunned Cambodian leaders as much as possible and spent his sole encounter with Hun Sen chastising the Prime Minister over the repression of oppositionists and civil society advocates.
Afterwards, Obama refused to make a joint statement with Hun Sen, as is customary with leaders who host him.
That poke in the eye, however, was nothing compared to the way he stiffed Vietnam. He simply refused to go there. And rightly so.
When it comes to detaining dissidents, suppressing minority and religious rights and crushing free speech and multiparty democracy, Vietnam makes Myanmar look like a paradise.
Last month, two musicians joined scores of other detainees when they got 10-year jail terms for writing songs that criticised Hanoi’s lack of social justice and human rights.
Said Amnesty International’s Rupert Abbott: “These men are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression through their songs and non-violent activities.”
In truth, the Vietnam Communist Party’s days are numbered, not due to American pressure, but because of domestic fury over the government’s economic incompetence.
Earlier this year, an internal revolt tried to oust Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, but fearing the party itself might split, the instigators lost heart and Dung survived.
The reprieve was short-lived and he was again assailed last month and forced to apologise for his shabby performance.
Then, in Hanoi’s National Assembly 10 days ago, representative Duong Trung Quoc rose and demanded Dung resign.
Not only was Quoc not reprimanded, but the state-controlled media reported what he’d said and the assembly later passed a resolution mandating a vote of confidence in Dung’s government.
It clearly signals the beginning of the end for Dung and almost certainly for the party’s dictatorial monopoly of the political arena.
And not before time. For the people of Vietnam understood Obama’s message, even if the cavemen in power did not.
Indeed, the whole shebang will be remembered not for his presence, but for the way Cambodia’s chairmanship caused yet another squabble among ASEAN members.
As at the July ministerial meeting, last week’s war of words was about failing to reach a consensus about whether they had reached a consensus about handling the South China Sea sovereignty disputes.
Yeah, really. Go figure.
In reality, the most important aspect of the summit was related to what Obama had said earlier in Yangon.
Lauding Myanmar’s reforms, he signalled to other recalcitrant regimes that America’s hand would be extended to them if they would also mend their ways.
“I want to send a message across Asia,” said Obama. “We don’t need to be defined by the prisons of the past, we need to look forward to the future.”
Echoing her boss, National Security Council adviser Samantha Power said: “The president is sending a signal to other countries where reform either is not happening or repression is happening.”
She added: “If you take these reform steps, we will meet you action for action.”
In a nutshell then, Obama visited Myanmar because Washington was gratified by its reforms and rewarded it accordingly.
Restrictions on its imports into the US were removed and a $170 million scheme was initiated to boost good governance and capacity building.
The flip side of the message was that he would avoid visiting other places that were perceived as not reforming, like Cambodia and Vietnam.
Oh, but you will say he visited Cambodia.
Yes, but as the New York Times noted: “Obama made clear he came only because Cambodia happened to be the site for a summit meeting of Asian leaders.”
If the EAS has been held elsewhere, he would have given Phnom Penh a wide berth because of the government’s shoddy human rights record.
Obliged to spend a day here, he shunned Cambodian leaders as much as possible and spent his sole encounter with Hun Sen chastising the Prime Minister over the repression of oppositionists and civil society advocates.
Afterwards, Obama refused to make a joint statement with Hun Sen, as is customary with leaders who host him.
That poke in the eye, however, was nothing compared to the way he stiffed Vietnam. He simply refused to go there. And rightly so.
When it comes to detaining dissidents, suppressing minority and religious rights and crushing free speech and multiparty democracy, Vietnam makes Myanmar look like a paradise.
Last month, two musicians joined scores of other detainees when they got 10-year jail terms for writing songs that criticised Hanoi’s lack of social justice and human rights.
Said Amnesty International’s Rupert Abbott: “These men are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression through their songs and non-violent activities.”
In truth, the Vietnam Communist Party’s days are numbered, not due to American pressure, but because of domestic fury over the government’s economic incompetence.
Earlier this year, an internal revolt tried to oust Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, but fearing the party itself might split, the instigators lost heart and Dung survived.
The reprieve was short-lived and he was again assailed last month and forced to apologise for his shabby performance.
Then, in Hanoi’s National Assembly 10 days ago, representative Duong Trung Quoc rose and demanded Dung resign.
Not only was Quoc not reprimanded, but the state-controlled media reported what he’d said and the assembly later passed a resolution mandating a vote of confidence in Dung’s government.
It clearly signals the beginning of the end for Dung and almost certainly for the party’s dictatorial monopoly of the political arena.
And not before time. For the people of Vietnam understood Obama’s message, even if the cavemen in power did not.
2 comments:
This author understand yuon intention. Yuon try to fool the world that they are clean. But this author took spit image from khmers mouth and mind about yuon incompetents and ignorant toword Khmer krom
Dictatorship and central government are no longer the landscapes of the 21st century for the world.
America under Barack Obama has no role as the police of the world,That because the cold-war ended, but America still has a role as the enforcer,the defender for Democracy.
In the president's view,what that is not fair or democratized in a small region of the world is like a tiny cancer cell of the world,if America ignores this present problems,the problem will come back to America in the future in a different way,for we are living in the global village.Cambodia once was American's battle field,that left so many lives in casualty, in the cold-war era,now Cambodia is still a scar in the american's conscience.
The world is moving fast from the dark-sided orbit that have possessed the world for thousand of years into the positive orbit of glory and transparency.I am not surprised that Brack Obama refused to visit Vietnam and he also had to wear stone-face during a brief meeting with Hun Sen in a Peace Palace for Hun Sen has got so much blood on his hands.If Hun Sen manage to rule Cambodia until he is 90 years old then, he will probably be the world's last dictator.
Hun Sen is no different from Hosni Mubarak of Egypt,who had enjoyed aid from America,but when the time is ripe,America will secure the last nail to his coffin.
Those,who invest,defend or shake hands with the criminals/dictators will have to pay back their crimes.Remember there is only two sides of coin,one is right and one is wrong,and we all know that righteousness is the lord, Barack Obama,who is probably the world best gifted leader and the wisest American president certainly can't betray the lord.
The wheel of Democracy is an unstoppable force,it is powered by the universal demand for freedom and liberty of all humanity across the globe.Those who are putting themselves against this force are not the criminal of his own country,but also the enemy of the new braved world that the world are fighting for.
You can run,you can hide,but you can't escape.
True Khmer
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