The Ties that Bind and Refuse to Let Go

What have I done wrong?

School of Vice note: It's no coincidence that Mr Hun Sen is being summoned to Hanoi purportedly to 'strengthen bilateral ties' between the two countries just as these "ties", long intricately and strenuously applied as a noose around Cambodia's neck, binding her to Hanoi's whims, are beginning to loosen and the carefully tied knots are starting to unravel at each end, thanks to a people who have finally found their collective resolve and patriotic voice once again having been made to accept a status quo that denies them any voice or will at all as a people or nation with any history or pride, let alone recognised dignity as humans with an entity and a history carved up in stones and monuments by the bare hands, sweats and unparalleled sacrifices of their great ancestors. 

So confident and reassured has been a propped up autocratic ruler by these "fraternal ties" that he famously prophesied his reign would extend into his seventies [or was it nineties?] even if his once bountiful, lush, green country has been thoroughly drained of all its life-supporting essences and assets of every kind conceivable. 

Not that foreign tourists and visitors, on their brief visit to the country in their hundreds of thousands will have noticed these grim undercurrents and carefully camouflaged symptoms of organised plunder and rape; a place where most of the highways are well paved [at least on the surface and to the unsuspecting eye], the trees and forests seem to still be there, especially within view and sight from any of these major roads and well trodden locations like Siem Reap and Bokor, all being leased to Vietnam as its economic back up arrangement as Hanoi views economic strangulation to be a much more reliable tie with which to complete the hatchet job in the end than would be the case with human allies and, indeed, in recognition of a proud if small nation who may after all and against all the odds recover its true, authentic voice once more; just as Vietnamese leaders have long foreseen and accurately predicted. 

What do you think Hanoi will be prescribing Mr Hun Sen this time?