Asia Times Online
PHNOM PENH - To the boom of
artillery and the crackle of fireworks, Cambodians
bid a final farewell this week to their beloved
King Father Norodom Sihanouk. Across the country,
citizens paused for a moment of silence as
Sihanouk's embalmed body was cremated in a lavish
new structure built on hallowed ground next to the
walls of the Royal Palace. Dozens of foreign
dignitaries, including French Prime Minister
Jean-Marc Ayrault and Prince Akishino of Japan,
were on hand to witness the passing of Cambodia's
last God-King, who died in Beijing on October 15,
two weeks shy of his 90th birthday.
As
evening fell, the crematorium, a 47-meter-high
tower topped with a golden spire, blazed with
thousands of tiny lights as King Norodom Sihamoni
and Queen Mother Monineath, both clad in white, entered its inner
chamber. Half an hour later, Sihamoni symbolically
lit his father's sandalwood oil-soaked body and
the former king was engulfed in flames, ascending
in a cloud of smoke to the haunting strains of
Cambodia's traditional funeral music. The
following day, some of Sihanouk's ashes were
scattered in the city's churning river waters; the
remainder of his ashes will be kept in a
diamond-encrusted urn inside the Royal Palace.
So departed one of history's great
characters and iconoclasts, a reluctant monarch
who came to personify his country's violent and
turbulent journey through the 20th century. Born
in Phnom Penh on October 31, 1922, Sihanouk
oversaw Cambodia's transition from French
colonialism to independence, and then its descent
into the maelstrom of civil war and the brutal
dictatorship of the communist Khmer Rouge. Along
the way, he served in a bewildering array of
roles, first as king, and subsequently as prime
minister, head of state, non-aligned leader,
communist figurehead, leader-in-exile, and finally
as constitutional monarch until his abdication in
2004.
On Monday, tens of thousands of
white-clad Cambodians gathered in a park a few
blocks from the palace, where they awaited a
chance to pay their final respects to their
beloved Samdech Euv, or "Monsignor Papa". "I think
a lot about him," said Saem Yeam, 77, who grew up
under Sihanouk's rule in the 1950s and 1960s.
Clasping her hands together in a gesture of
reverence, Yeam recalled the Sihanouk years as an
island of peace before the turmoil of war and
upheaval. "In that time, all of his children were
very happy and educated. Everything was being
developed. Everything was perfect," she said.
Despite the outpouring of nostalgia,
Cambodia's centuries-old monarchy faces an
uncertain future. Since 2004, when Sihanouk
abdicated in favor of his son Norodom Sihamoni,
the monarchy has been elbowed aside by Prime
Minister Hun Sen, the former communist who has run
Cambodia with a firm hand for the past 28 years.
In addition to being a moving send-off for the
King Father, this week's funeral ceremonies were
also something of a victory lap for Hun Sen and
his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) - the
successful culmination of the party's long effort
to bind the monarchy in ceremony, shackle it with
praise, and assert itself as the sole protector
and heir of Sihanouk's royal legacy.
Since
1979, when the CPP (then known as the Kampuchean
People's Revolutionary Party) was installed in
power by Vietnam after it overthrew the Khmer
Rouge regime, Sihanouk's popularity has posed a
persistent threat to its power. During the 1980s,
when Sihanouk was part of a resistance coalition
fighting the regime in Phnom Penh, the CPP-run
press denounced the ex-king as an "exploitative"
feudal reactionary opposed to the interests of the
working class. The CPP's attitude started to shift
as peace talks advanced in the late 1980s: when
Sihanouk returned to Cambodia from exile in
November 1991, shortly after the signing of the
Paris Peace Accords, Hun Sen rode with him into
town past ecstatic crowds. In 1992, the CPP party
mouthpiece Pracheachon praised Sihanouk and
described the CPP as the "little brother" of
Sihanouk's earlier regime.
Gilded
cage
At the same time, however, the CPP
also sought to restrict the returning monarch's
ambitions. After he was re-crowned king in
September 1993, it went to great lengths to
confine Sihanouk to the roles laid down in the new
constitution, which specified that the king reign
but not rule. "From the beginning, the CPP saw the
danger of giving the monarchy a free reign,
because of the popularity of the King Father with
the rural population," said Julio Jeldres,
Sihanouk's official biographer. "So from the
beginning, everything was tightly controlled."
A few days before the September 24
coronation of King Sihamoni, Kong Samol, an
American-educated agronomist and current CPP
Politburo member, was appointed minister of the
Royal Palace, a position he has held ever sense.
Sources close to the palace say the minister has
kept King Sihamoni under increasingly close
surveillance, preventing him from meeting the
people or traveling freely around the country.
Sihanouk initially bucked against these
restrictions, hoping to maneuver himself back into
the political game. After several failed attempts
to form his own government after the UN-backed
1993 elections, Sihanouk found himself
increasingly bereft of power. His son, Prince
Norodom Ranariddh, won the election and ruled in
coalition with Hun Sen, but increasingly bucked
and ignored his father's wishes. In July 1997, Hun
Sen overthrew Ranariddh in a bloody coup de force,
an event that marked a further diminution of
Sihanouk's power.
Henceforth, the king
spent an increasing amount of time outside the
country, particularly in Beijing, where he penned
sorrowful and acerbic commentaries lamenting the
corruption and injustice of Hun Sen's rule. Hun
Sen, at the same time, donned Sihanouk's mantle,
replicating his hours-long speeches, school
construction drives, and close identification with
Cambodia's "little people". Sihanouk finally
stepped down in 2004, ceding the throne to his son
Sihamoni and the political arena to Hun Sen, who
he increasingly took to describing as the "son" he
never had.
"Hun Sen has always wanted to
become the Sihanouk of his era, and somehow he has
succeeded," said Prince Sisowath Thomico, one of
Sihanouk's former aides.
Realizing that
the game was up, Sihanouk finally stepped down in
2004, ceding the throne to his son Sihamoni and
the political arena to Hun Sen, who he
increasingly took to describing as the "son" he
never had. "Sihanouk had one big ambition that
remained unfulfilled and that was to rule over a
prosperous and peaceful Cambodia," said Benny
Widyono, author of Dancing in Shadows:
Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations
in Cambodia. "He had realized he couldn't beat
Hun Sen. His lifelong ambition remained
unfulfilled."
King Sihamoni, a former
ballet dancer who spent years as Cambodia's
ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, has shown little
taste for the political game, leaving politics to
Hun Sen and his CPP dominated government. In the
end, with Hun Sen consolidating his own power and
marginalizing royalist rivals like Ranariddh,
Sihanouk chose to abdicate in a bid to ensure the
monarchy would survive beyond his own death.
"He had to make sure the monarchy would
survive. His only choice was to abdicate and have
the council of the throne to elect a new king,"
said Thomico. But if the ascension of Sihamoni
saved the monarchy from Hun Sen's attacks, it also
gave the CPP what they had wanted all along: a
king who would stay out of politics. "If I was to
write a book about Sihamoni I would call it The
Reluctant King," said Widyono. "He fits Hun Sen's
bill very well."
As a result, Sihanouk's
passing has been politically muted - a final
lavish seal on the monarchy's withdrawal from
political life. And the CPP has spared no expense
in asserting itself as the sole guardian of his
legacy. The government reportedly spent US$5
million building the soaring crematorium that was
the centerpiece of the weekend's tightly-scripted
ceremonies. On Friday, a lavish funeral procession
bore Sihanouk's casket through the streets of
Phnom Penh for one last time, while loudspeakers
rigged across town broadcast eulogies of the King
Father and long lists of his achievements.
In addition, the government minted a new
title for the departed King Father, who will
henceforth be known by the honorific Preah Borom
Ratanak Koad, as well as a new 1,000 riel
(US$0.24) note bearing an image of the golden
funeral carriage which bore his body home from
Beijing in October. (The only country in the world
to boast a ruin on its national flag, Cambodia is
now likely the first to have a funeral on its
currency). Then came Monday's beautiful cremation,
a final flourish of tradition that drew a firm
line between the fading era of Sihanouk and the
rising era of Hun Sen.
"Hun Sen says, give
them the last rites," said one former Asian
diplomat. "After that, the monarchy will be lost
in oblivion."
Phay Siphan, a government
spokesman, said that under the Constitution, the
king had no political power but still retained a
"power of conscience". Government officials meet
regularly with King Sihamoni to discuss the state
of the country, he said, but denied the government
kept the palace on a short leash. "It's
groundless. Why would we monitor it?" Siphan said.
"We have no power to decide for the king."
For now, many Cambodians remain fixated on
the past, mourning Sihanouk's life and
achievements. Since Friday, Mao Sovann, 54, has
sold hundreds of commemorative photographs of the
King Father. Spread out in front of her in the
park, they show Sihanouk as a young man, haughty
in the early years of his reign, and Sihanouk in
suit and tie, at the cherubic peak of his power in
the mid-1960s. Other portraits show Sihanouk and
his wife in the black pajamas of the Khmer Rouge
in 1973, and later in a formal portrait alongside
their son Sihamoni.
"Everybody loves him
and wants to keep photos for their children and
grandchildren," Sovann said. "The next generation
who didn't know him, we will show them the
pictures." And as for the future? "I don't know
what's going on," she said. "Right now there's
only one thing I know: Prime Minister Hun Sen -
he's in charge of everything."
Sebastian Strangio is a
journalist based in Phnom Penh who covers the
Asia-Pacific and is currently working on a book
about modern Cambodia. He may be reached
atsebastian.strangio@gmail.com.
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