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Khmer Politics Alternatives Circle

~ Thinking outside the box about Cambodia

Khmer Politics Alternatives Circle

Monthly Archives: February 2015

Moral defection – Part I

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Issue, Social

≈ Comments Off on Moral defection – Part I

My dear Kacvey,

During the Cold War, you certainly had heard about and read a lot of stories of spies, moles or other people who defected from one country to another: East to West, or West to East. It was big stuff involving big secret intelligence organizations. Defectors were protected by the recipient countries with money and comfort, and even given a new identity.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, after his arrival in the US, had this to say: “I’ve always said, ‘I am a selector, I am not defector’ – the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate ‘defector’; something defective about the people. It’s a bad word.”

You may with high confidence ask what in heaven’s name is this story about “defector”? Well, because the word “defector” has been lately and extensively referred to in many political conversations in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk.

If your patience is not thin, let begin with the word “defect”.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

defect (noun) = (a)  an imperfection that impairs worth or utility, or shortcoming and (b)  an imperfection in a crystal lattice.

to defect (intransitive verb) = (a) to forsake one cause, party, or nation for another often because of a change in ideology, and (b)  to leave one situation (as a job) often to go over to a rival.

Thus derive the words: defector and defection.

Hope you begin to visualize the skeleton of the plot! So, on 13 February a deputy from the opposition party left his elected position at the national assembly, but neither himself nor his party has not publicly said or published whether he had officially abandoned his party or his party had officially withdrawn his party ID card. But the fact of the matter was that he was immediately offered a high position with ministerial rank as one of the hundredth “advisers” to the prime minister who was not stingy in welcoming the defector to joining his party. He did not waste any minute to accept and receive his reward. “Collect on delivery”, one would say! He fully meets then the definition of the verb “to defect”.

Then, what “secret” the defector would bring from the opposition party to the ruling party, if he had any? Since he indicated that once upon a time he worked in the aviation industries, could it be possible that he would reveal to the ruling party the “secret” on how to build a paper plane? What “confidential” materials would be in his possession that could do damages to his old party? If the answers are “no”, the defection would then be purely that the grass looks greener over the next hill. Once an opportunist, always an opportunist! (see KhmerPAC article of 2014/12/18). It would look that he is never satisfied with what he has. Human being failing!

Apparently, his defection took his party by surprise as it never expected that such a thing would happen, the minority leader and the first vice president being so sure of their rock solid solidarity within the party.  A big crack caused by the renegade is an unquestionable, but unsaid, embarrassment that undesirable effect would with certainty resonate in the future.

Kacvey, when the next time you are in Kep, Chhouk or Kampong Trach, could you please ask the people of those areas who voted for his ex-party and him to find out what had he done for them during his deputation? What impact had his representation over the community life of his constituency? Do they shed any tear over his resignation or do they see them off with a “never come back” wish? Was there any banquet organized in Kampot by his friends to wish him “Adieu”, or did he just leave the town by the back door without a humble and grateful handshake to his constituency upon whom a treachery has been played out shamefully?

Saint Basil reminds all of us with this passage of wisdom: “Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?”

A defector is never alone in the Cambodian history of defection.

(To be continued to “Moral defection – Part II)

The nephews – Part X

21 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Governance, Issue, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

My dear Kacvey,

So, like Jupiter from the top of Mount Olympus, the big nabob took the high road to publicly and severely criticize the municipal court judge for his decision to release the parents (of a famous murder suspect) from detention; he even mentioned that million of US$ had changed hands for the lubrication of transaction with the help of a military brigadier-general. Public acknowledgement of corruption by people under his stewardship, isn’t it!? This will not go into a deaf ear.

A lot of ink has already been spilled to cover this event by many people outside the government or the ruling party. Let us consider those comments or critics as one side of the coin. BTW, have you collected those articles for future reference?

How about the other side of the coin? What does it reveals or conceal?

The big nabob made a lot of noise about the judge, his history, his actions and decisions, but no noise has been heard on the followings:

– The suspect murderer who is still at large was a chef de cabinet at the ministry of defense. What has that ministry done vis-à-vis that chef de cabinet? Any internal investigation? Why the ministry has been so silent on this case?

– Another military brigadier-general has now been arrested for complicity with the judge. The ministry of defense is still silent. Is the judge playing the scapegoat for the military? If the big nabob really wanted to shake up his corrupted government, why didn’t he make a big noise about the ministry of defense and its no-action or comments vis-à-vis the 2 officers?

– The sacking of the judge overshadows the investigation of the murder and the disappearance of the the suspect. Diversion of public attention is a short-term tactical strategy to win over social doubt and unhappiness. Is the ministry of interior who oversees the national police is playing a no-name competition game against the ministry of defense using the chicken liver and invertebrate ministry of justice as a kicking ball? Incidentally, isn’t the minister of interior the Majority leader, or is it? The sacking did not come spontaneously but rather with cunning calculation to coincide with the present moment when “one of the 3” still remains hospitalized in a neighboring country, and the “ad interim” is putting in place a structure to glorify himself with a statue which height could reach the lobby of heaven and to be erected in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk. Conventional wisdom is that a statue is generally erected post-mortem, for it is meant that the real person would not see his own artificial sculptured image or … the pigeon droppings.

When justice is the slave of the power and the powerful, no one can cry out for justice, and there is no higher court than the court of power itself.

Cambodia has become such a banana country, and to paraphrase Frederick Douglass, a 19th century American leader of the abolitionist movement, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Ad interim

19 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Event, Institution, Politics

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My dear Kacvey,

So, the “ad interim” is confirmed within his own party. Another line to be added in the CV – big deal!

But what does that mean to Cambodia and Cambodians at large? For 30 years, Cambodians have seen it all. Nothing to clamor about. Inconsequential. What’s the difference?!

But let us turn the mirror around, and see what is hidden there? The seat of the president of the senate … which happens to play a very important role when the king is out of the country. The “ad interim” will never promote or allow the senate 1st or 2nd vice-president to that position, because he also nurtures it as a stepping stone to higher ambition. Is he a swollen ambition, isn’t he?!

Ambition knows no limit; it doesn’t end either, because the incentive to ambition is the endless love of power.

But ambition also creates dilemma, desirable or otherwise:

– prime minister or president of the senate?

– prime minister and president of the senate:  2 in 1?

Would he ask himself: Can I wear 2 hats at the same time? Yes, I can, he would reply to himself; Cambodia is me; I am Cambodia and I can do whatever I want; nobody can stop me from doing what I want to do; I rule.

Well, he may be right in his own mind, but things that move change and will change like everything that moves on this planet, except only 2 things: day and night.

Kacvey, just a short digression, with apologies though: In a circus tent, clown would wear 2 hats because it looks funny and stupid! Man laughs at other man’s stupidity, but doesn’t do it at his own.

Do you recall the position and role of the Chef de l’Etat during the Sangkum era, although the throne was fully occupied?

Someone might have learned Cambodian history lesson 101 very well.

Like in a chess game, when a pawn is moved, it leaves an empty square that could well instigate the hidden ambition of both the Majority leader and the minority leader. Time will not exclude a ferocious rivalry between them followed by unmerciful political contest and blow.

No matter how the turn of events will be, just bear in mind these few words from Bryant H. McGill, an American author: “Do not let your ambitions become a sanctuary for your failures.”

UPDATE on Monday 8 June 2015:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/586081/cambodia-ruling-party-chief-chea-sim-dies-at-82

Khméro-Français, si un jour …

17 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Social

≈ Comments Off on Khméro-Français, si un jour …

My dear Kacvey,

As you know, in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk, there are plenty of KCPB/French in the leadership of Cambodia; many of them have their children and grand children in L’Hexagone.

Who knows, if one day in the future, near or far, these children or grandchildren may have a national “hexagonal” destiny, like their parents or grandparents in Cambodia, honestly earned or otherwise!

Well, be it as it might, this link could, in one aspect, be helpful to them in the preparation to that destiny starting in 2018 … which, incidentally, will also be a year where the fights for power in Cambodia would be merciless!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11414245/France-demands-that-its-future-leaders-must-speak-English.html

It would seem that Natalie Loiseau bid antithesis to Napoléon Bonarparte who, once, said: “La France, c’est le français quand il est bien écrit” … mais qui, malgré tout, ne suffira plus!

Eh oui, les temps changent les moeurs et coutumes.

 

The nephews – Part IX

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Governance, Issue, Politics, Social

≈ Comments Off on The nephews – Part IX

My dear Kacvey,

Let us take a break from watching the Cambodian ship which is powered by nepotism and corruption, and look at another part of the world how this remediless disease is dealt with. It is in India where the new Chief Minister of Delhi plans to do during his stewardship in the next five years: “No more graft”.

This is the link: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/475249/delhi-chief-vows-end-to-graft

Whether he will succeed or not, times will tell and judge his actions and results, but his political courage to honor his promise towards the population of Delhi is a study of respect and responsibility towards his constituents who will no doubt be sovereign either to renew his mandate or to kick him out, as public office is supposed to be a public trust.

Kacvey, if you happened to cross path with big honchos on the golf course, would you please find out, without despondency or sarcasm, whether or not some of them would soon be invited to Delhi to attend seminar or retreat on how to fight graft. As Plutarch, once said: “To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”

Any takers among the “New Blood”?

(To be continued to “The nephews – Part X”)

The nephews – Part VIII

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Issue, Social

≈ Comments Off on The nephews – Part VIII

My dear Kacvey,

You must be wondering what these series of “The nephews” would lead to, and what good does it make if the remedies are nowhere to be found?

Well, the spectrum of nepotism/cronyism/corruption in Cambodia is like a person who is a sick patient, who also happens to be a doctor who not only wrongly self-diagnosed the sickness but also denied that he is sick.

It is also like a person who is a policeman in the morning, a judge in the afternoon and a robber in the night. Moonlighting, Multitasking, you would say! So he steals, and the policeman tells everybody that there was no robbery, and the judge tells the court that he can’t judge because the policeman never brings the robber to court.

Get the picture?!

So, what is the common denominator in these 2 instances? Denial, that is.

Kcavey, you are encouraged to focus your attention on these 3 links – Thanks a lot BBC and Phnom Penh Post! – and later determine for us the massive amount of corruption that is rampaging the entire country from top to bottom, or from bottom to top, and for which nobody take responsibility, except the low ranking policemen:

BBC – The culture of impunity http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30324424

Police admit trouble at top – http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-admit-trouble-top

Sar Kheng laments capital crime – http://m.phnompenhpost.com/sar-kheng-laments-capital-crime

Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve chairman had this to say pragmatically: “Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.”

The key words are “successful” and “minimum”.

As a follow-up from “The nephews – Part VII” regarding the state of Oregon, the governor has resigned as per this link: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/02/governor_john_kitzhaber_will_s.html#incart_most-readoregonian

Kacvey, in the US politics, when politicians get caught violating the laws and ethics, they will face consequences as prescribed by the laws. Can Khmer politicians man it up?!

(To be continued to “The nephews – Part IX”)

Who takes Cambodia for a ride?

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Governance, Issue, Politics

≈ Comments Off on Who takes Cambodia for a ride?

My dear Kacvey,

Aeschylus once said: “It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.”

You may be wondering what is all this about? Well, if we may, this is just the continuation of an earlier post dated 19 November 2014 titled: “Pain in the nec” that you have to refresh your memory with in order to follow what ensues.

After 22 July 2014, when all the dust is settled, the 123 people who crowd the national assembly talked big about the negotiations/dialogues/drafting of new laws to reform the “nec” and the fate of its 9th member. They set up biparty commissions and working groups to work on it; they paraded themselves in front of television cameras promising holy waters from heaven for a new set of laws. 31 December 2014 was their first deadline. That date came and went. They set a new deadline: End of February 2015.

Well, with the way they are dragging their feet and pulling the blankets to themselves, all bets that a set of new laws will be ready by end of February 2015 are off. The ladder is not tall and high enough for them to reach heaven for the promised holy waters. They will not have any other alternatives but to reset a new deadline again, and perhaps again and again, and again ….

It is an easy exercise for them because they are not accountable to anybody, including themselves; they fool Cambodians who voted for them, and they not only fool themselves but also make a fool out of themselves; they do not work for Cambodians who voted for them, they work for themselves and their party; they show no interests in bringing Cambodians towards democratic progress, they only prepare themselves to retain powers or to take powers; they set up a scheme to perpetuate their position in the leadership of Cambodia and to eternalize their wishful thinking that they are made out of Angkor Wat’s stones.

Meanwhile, while the “nec” is still in pain and the people who are supposed to cure it are just pure pain in the neck for Cambodia, they divert themselves to divert the public attention on issues that they will never, ever come to actually tackle such as to regulate rents on private houses and properties, including hundred thousands of those owned by themselves and their relatives. What an immature, untrustworthy and shallow attitude!

Kacvey, if by any chance you run into a member of the commission/working group which purpose is to reform the “nec” – a member who is KCPB/French – it would be interesting to ask whether that person is familiar with a phrase coined by Napoléon Bonaparte: “The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it” or “le meilleur moyen de tenir sa parole est de ne jamais la donner.”

As a proverb goes: “When a man repeats a promise again and again, he means to fail you.” After all, who takes Cambodians for a ride?

UPDATE – As of Sunday 28 February 2015 COB, nothing is done! They should reform themselves first before reforming the “nec”. What an ugly and irresponsible reality!

New Blood

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Issue, Politics, Social

≈ Comments Off on New Blood

My dear Kacvey,

In medicine, blood transfusions in human bodies are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood.

But lately, in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk, stories of “New Blood” that came out of the congress in Koh Pich were not only the headlines of newspapers and TV programs, but also attracted comments from some frustrated or desperate protagonists of various political formations vying for power and public attention.

If the limited information that was intentionally leaked out of Koh Pich is not corrupted as the set-up itself, the central committee has been injected with “new blood” from 306 fresh donors, whereas the standing committee is still standing on its own 2 legs as it has so far been with the same and old blood. Simultaneously but ironically, 3 “old-blood” spinmeisters of dubitable and untrustworthy credentials have also been enjoined to challenge the loud and increased critics from all corners.

The 306 donors of “new blood” could be classified into a few categories but the main ones are:

(a) the generals of the army and police whose stars on their shoulders keep the tailors around Psar Thméy as busy as possible, whose wealth come from the illegal logging, the land grabbing, the illegal trade and bribery, and whose real knowledge of all military and police matters is dubious, doubtful, unschooled and untested; and

(b) the off-springs of the arrivistes, the political and self-proclaimed elites including those of the standing committee, and the (a) above.

Kacvey, how do you gauge the quality of the “new blood”:

– if it comes from a sick and unclean body and bloodstream?

– if the environment where it generates is corrupted to the marrow?

And how do you ensure that the transfused blood would improve the medical condition of the sick body:

– if the newly transfused blood does not contain any assured quality to replace the components that are deficient? and

– if the old blood remain strongly resistant to any weak and obedient input?

By the way, in Bram Stoker’s mind, Dracula needs blood!

Meanwhile, feared of being once again outmaneuvered and outdone, the minority leader played musical chairs hoping that the tune, notwithstanding discordant and inharmonious, would attract some public attention. In the absence of “new blood”, he leisurely and without convincing essence and significance shuffled some of his “old blood” occupying the posts of provincial party leaders from one place to another.  But would they know that if they wanted to improve their influence and actions, they would have to improve first their own heart, head and hands, wouldn’t they?

 

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