My dear Kacvey,

Are you ready to take a little break during the Year-End festivities or are you still caught up in the big mess – Repeat: BIG MESS! – in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk?

What BIG MESS?

Oh, guess you don’t see it because either you’re like the nose being to close to the eyes so the latter can’t see or you live in the middle of the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk that you become so immune to the chaos in both political streets and real streets around Phsar Thméy, Phsar Olympic, Phsar Toul Toumpong etc …

Please elaborate!

Oh, It’s easy:
1) The weak strongman trips to New York, Brussels and Geneva turned out to be useless as no one paid attention to him or to what he was saying about EBA. On the way back home, he had a state dinner in Turkey but nobody cared or talked about him.
2) Then, he was off to Singapore and Port Moresby where he was quiet like a mouse in a rat hole;
3) Then, he was off again to Kathmandu just to show to his sycophants that he has done something on his own. Wondering why he didn’t ask Nepal to provide aid and assistance to escalate Mount Everest?
4)Then, off again to Vientiane to get a lesson on how 30 Lao soldiers could occupy a swath of land in Stung Trèng without any resistance from his border troops. After Vientiane, he continued to Hanoi to pay respect to the new leader of Vietnam, the country to which he owed his nowadays fortune as an autocrat, the same country that sheltered and indoctrinated him since 1977 and brought him back to the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk on 7 January 1979.
5) While the weak strongman was on those foreign cities, his kangaroo court has freed a number of critics and/or opposition activists from jail. Those freed activists, fearing that they would be arrested or jailed again have left Srok Khmer to seek asylum in foreign countries. Only the head of the opposition still remain under house arrest in his private residence in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk.
6) While the weak strongman is struggling on how to meet the conditions set up by the European Union in order for Cambodia to continue to benefit from the favorable tariff, his sycophants have been instructed to send out some trial balloons in the open sky, first in the form of amending certain legal dispositions that the same sycophants adopted before the July 2018 election, and second towards The Cambodia Daily, Voice of America or Radio Free Asia to “return” and operate again in Cambodia; while the ink has not dried yet, those organizations have responded by “shooting” straight at those balloons as practice targets. How can they trust a robber disguised as a Samaritan?
7) Meanwhile the opposition held a world congress in Atlanta to be followed two weeks later by another one in Paris for the purpose of “appointing” an interim leader while the real leader is still under house arrest in his private residence not far from Takhmau. The appointment of an interim leader turned out to be a spark that ignited the internal war between the two factions that formed and animated the opposition. The two leaders of the opposition claimed that they are “one”, but their respective supporters don’t want to hear anything of it.
8) Meantime, the weak strongman and the ex-opposition leader in exile engaged each other through Facebook not only in war of words but also in placing wager on the status of the opposition leader under house arrest.
9) The weak strongman, not to be outdone by the opposition in term of “congress” and the images from Atlanta and Paris, called up the meeting of the 41st Congress of the Central Committee of his party. Mark Twain, once, said: “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
10) Last but not least, one of the weak strongman sons has shed his civilian/military clothes as intelligence honcho for a Buddhist saffron robe. Once a monk, always a monk? Saint basil, once, said: “First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.”

So, this is the state of affairs in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk that looks chaotic and messy?

Inside the country, the weak strongman must solve the “outside” EU/EBA equation regarding not only the constitutional and legal status of the opposition leader under house arrest but also with regards to respect of democracy, rule of law and human rights that the weak strongman himself has so far trampled under his feet. The weak strongman played hard ball against democracy and the opposition before the election by using his rule or changing it as he moved along. Through vanity and greed for power, he made the sand box into a quicksand box out of which he must find his way out. When in Brussels and Geneva, he saw with his own eye how the EU is serious about its stand vis-à-vis his autocracy that he imposed upon the Khmer society and people. To believe and blindly trust that China has the magic wand to come and rescue him from his own machination against EU/EBA is an exercise of ignorance of Chinese hidden long-term goal over the land and water of Cambodia.

Why is the weak strongman so stubborn?

Well, it could come from his early age learning under the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge regime where surrender must never be an option:
– he joined Pol Pot, and Pol Pot won in 1975;
– he escaped Pol Pot in 1977 and went to Vietnam and returned to Cambodia as a victorious in 1979;
– he threatened the return to war after he lost the 1993 UNTAC election;
– he orchestrated a kind of coup d’état against his co-premier in 1997;
– he won every election, by hook or by crook;
– sensing a defeat that could be coming in July 2018, he orchestrated the whole machination to win the sham election, and
– he even have a win-win monument built to his glory.

Kacvey, if you have better vision from the inside, please illuminate.