Is Thbong Khmoum Jail Door Now Open?

09 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Event, Governance, Human Rights, Justice, Politics

My dear Kacvey,

Please keep us posted on the rumor that the Thbong Khmoum jail door has been open, and the weak strongman is caught in his own spinning quagmire.

That’s fast, Kacvey! Thanks, Bro!

The weak strongman is losing direction on his compass and mixing up bishops, knights and rooks on his chess board. 34 years of absolute power are eroding the cells from the monkey mind.

While the released-on-bail of the opposition leader flashed in social media and newspapers throughout the world, the weak strongman secretly flew to his lord’s lair in the Northern Capital, and from there publicly announced the release. Why there, and not in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk? Possibly or probably because:
– the lord is not happy of the way the weak strongman handle the sham election;
– the lord has not received any credit from the entire world for helping the weak strongman winning the sham election;
– the lord might have a special message for the future;
or
– the weak strongman wants to avoid the Singapore hospital (A side question to you, Kacvey: do your students remember where did Sihanouk pass away?)
– the weak strongman executes the ritual pilgrimage to pay respect and re-pledge allegiance to the lord for the grace and fortune dispensed upon him and his tribesmen by the lord;
– the weak strongman wants to assure the lord that the territory is wide open to receive any number of the lord subjects to come and settle.

Updates:

- Reuters reported Cambodian opposition leader released but put under house of arrest
- CNN reported Cambodia opposition leader Kem Sokha released from prison
- LICADHO reported Khem Sokha Transferred to House Arrest
- SEA GLOBE reported Cambodia’s opposition leader Kem Sokha released to home detention
- The New York Times reported Kem Sokha, Cambodia’s Jailed Opposition Leader, Is Released
- The Japan Times, reproducing AFP, reported Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha released from jail as Hun Sen eases crackdown on foes
- The Washington Post reported Cambodian opposition leader released as strongman Hun Sen secures grip on power
- Les Echos rapportent: Cette nuit en Asie : après des législatives déloyales, l’homme fort du Cambodge libère son principal opposant
- DPA International reported Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha released from prison
- Al Jazeera reported Cambodia opposition figure Kem Sokha under house arrest
- BBC News reported Cambodia releases opposition leader Kem Sokha on bail
- The Guardian reported Cambodia: opposition leader Kem Sokha released from prison
- The Independent reported Cambodia opposition leader Kem Sokha released on bail following ruling party’s landslide election victory
- Khmer Times reported Kem Sokha released in early morning today
- TIME reported Cambodia’s Opposition Leader Has Been Released on Bail After a Year Behind Bars
- Amnesty International reported Cambodia: Release of Kem Sokha must be made permanent
- RFA reported Release of Cambodian Opposition Chief Fails to Satisfy Hun Sen Critics
- On 11 September 2018, Reuters reported U.S. urges Cambodia to remove restrictions against opposition leader

The Complete Loss of Order

26 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Governance, Human Rights, Issue, Justice, Politics, Social

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My dear Kacvey,

After the sham election, it looks like the weak strongman is changing the cards deck and sticking his finger out to feel which direction the wind is blowing in order for him to save his dictatorship from a possible and probable shipwreck.

This is how he has been shuffling the new deck of cards: releasing prisoners that his administration and its sycophantic henchmen in the police and judiciary system had arrested, condemned and incarcerated through trumped and bogus charges, and for purely political motives as to silence any critics against his corrupt and repressive policy.

The pregnant vixen named August has been so prolific in delivering cubs, all named Pardon, one after another:
– on 17 August 2018: Kim Sok, a political commentator was released after 18 months in jail;
– on 20 August 2018, Tep Vanny, along with 3 other land rights defenders were released after 2 years in jail;
– on 21 August 2018, Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, two journalists were released on bail;
– on 23 August 2018, Sourn Serey Ratha, the former leader of Khmer Power Party was released after spending more than a year in jail; (N.B. Suorn Serey Ratha was first pardoned in July 2015)
– on 25 August 2018, Um Sam An, an opposition parliamentarian, was released after spending more than 2 years in jail.
– on 27 August 2018, past midnight, Meach Sovannara and 13 other prisoners belonging to the opposition party were released after spending more than 3 years in jail.
(The list will be updated as soon as news on new delivery is provided by the animals hospital.)

Kacvey, this set of successive news on releases and pardons must blow the brain of your students as well as yours as to what has been behind all of these? What is the weak strongman’s next move and what will be future consequences on the overall political landscape of Cambodia?

For now, from the bench of the campus auditorium, let formulate some conjectures or postulates and put them forward to your students for discussions:

Intra-Party pressure
The crooked victory has been the least celebrated in the history of the ruling party: no ovation, no fanfare, no firecrackers, no music, no parade, no joy, no nothing that resembled a pride and well-earned victory. It’s rather like a funerals or dismal and lugubrious mourning, without procession, upon the coffin of the dead body of democracy. They won all the 125 seats, and why are they not happy and elated?

It doesn’t need an Einstein to see through: they won through manipulation, deceit and intimidation, and they OVERDID it. They never feared of losing but they expected massive and public and explosive popular expression of discontentment and rejection. They overplayed their hand, and the people responded with a peaceful, internal, silent and zen-like discontentment and rejection.They felt the atmosphere of public resentment.

Within the close-knit circle of the weak strongman, that public resentment touched sensitive nerves of a few sycophants that still have brain and heart. The relatives of the Dirty Seventeen may ask a very simple question: with such a public resentment, how is the weak strongman going to govern? More repression on “what”, the opposition party being already out of the picture? Well, if the weak strongman has no more “official opposition” to kick around, he will kick those around him around.

Sometimes, sycophants can’t be that stupid all the times.

Kacvey, would you think that this new forum called “Supreme Council of Consultations“(SCC) would make the members of his party happy or be welcomed by them? Who are these 16 scums to check on the power of the ruling party that not only occupies all the 125 seats at the national assembly but also the executive and judiciary branches? The weak strongman by wanting so much to be praised for his corrupt and unpraisable deeds has just ridiculed himself inexorably.

International Pressure
Kacvey, you have already read tons of literature on the reactions of the international community to the sham election, and what they had done and expect to do in the future. We continue to document and update ourselves ceaselessly from Washington, Brussels and Canberra, Northern Capital and Eastern Capital falling off the radar.

What makes the weak strongman so frustrated with the international pressure that dominates the news during the electoral campaign, the sham election and afterward? His entire government runs out of arguments and ideas to counter Washington or Brussels, and there is NOBODY to carry the torch to challenge both capitals; (Oh, there is one, the head of the bodyguard unit who is ready to make war against the US!) he himself, having no personal ability nor skill to sit at the table and articulate and negotiate in person and viva voce.

Moreover, there is one disconnect between the weak strongman and the Dirty Seventeen that surround him in supporting his autocratic power: The international pressure is more strongly felt by the Dirty Seventeen than by the weak strongman himself. The weak strongman keeps on quacking to whom who wants to listen to that he has no fortune stacked in overseas accounts, but things are not the same with the Dirty Seventeen with regards to Australia and the US. If these Dirty Seventeen truly believe in the perennity of the weak strongman, why don’t they leave their fortune in Cambodia along with the weak strongman’s wealth? Why do they stash their fortune in Australia or the US or anywhere else outside Cambodia?

The Dirty Seventeen may ask a simple question: if their name are black listed, what can the weak strongman do to make it “white”? Weak Strongman, you have the floor, like you routinely do in front of the garment workers, before or after the sham election! Dirty Seventeen are waiting!

Oh Kacvey, one more thing. The weak strongman is also planning to sell his crooked victory through sham election to some European governments and the United Nations in New York in September and October (and also Japan, but well, don’t waste our time with Tokyo!) But there seems to be no enthusiasm and heat in preparing these so-called official trips: the feedback from those capitals is that the weak strongman would not to be welcome as a national liberator like Gandhi or Mandela, but would rather be met with snubs and massive demonstrations. [Remember the burning of ទីងមោង in Australia in March 2018!]

World leaders – except those notorious one-party state dictators – know the difference between a democratically elected head of government and a banana state autocrat. What ever speech he will deliver would never be believed, the burden of the sham election being so heavy and already undeniable. Poor speech writer(s), you’ll have such an impossible task, especially when your heart is only 50% with what and whom you work with!

By the same token, would the Dirty Seventeen dare showing their face with the autocratic delegation to visit their relatives attending colleges or to check on their properties in those places?

The devil in a saint cloak
The Sichuan Opera 川剧 is also known as the faces changing art 变脸. In this genre of opera, generally male actors or performers change from one face or mask to another almost instantaneously with the swipe of a fan, a movement of the head, or wave of the hand. With such a frequent visit to China, the weak strongman must certainly have attended that opera.

Kacvey, you may ask what has to do with the weak strongman and his sham election aftermath? Well, it has to do with how he’s managing that aftermath. He’s trying to change the mask of an evil dictator to a saint with a halo! He’s promoting himself as a saint showing mercy, compassion and clemency to the same prisoners that months or years earlier his bodyguards or judiciary goons, on his direct orders, arrested them and threw them in jail for no constitutional or legal rhyme or reason? Now that the sham election is over, and the democratic threat to his regime has already been crushed, he dons a saint cloak and mask to bless his autocratic sins.

A wicked man is capable of everything: one day he’s Satan, the next day a saint, and on and on. A wicked man can fool Tom, Dick or Harry some of the time but he cannot fool them all the time. It’s a fashion now for murderous ex-KR to hide behind religion conversion and to be reborn to cleanse their guilty conscience from the genocidal blood, but the weak strongman needs to attend theology classes if he wants his saint cloak to be believed.

“To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.”
These two phrases were used by Pol Pot and his ideologues to inflict accusation on the New People that the Khmer Rouge were about to do away with.

As soon as Tep Vanny and three other human rights defenders were released from jail, the kangaroo court of the weak strongman found her and other five members of the community guilty of OTHER crime. It’s not a secret to anybody that the weak strongman has in his sleeves a plethora of accusations against anybody that criticizes him or his repressive and corrupt authority. Cases in point are those of the self-exiled and ex-leader of the opposition and the current opposition leader who has been put in jail since September 2017 without investigations, charges or evidence of any wrongdoing.

The weak strongman exercises his repressive authority like an octopus: one tentacle release one prisoner at a time, others catch others; and once a prisoner is caught, the octopus spews its black ink on him/her that can’t be erased; it tells the prisoner she/he is “marked” for ever. The message from the weak strongman is clear: once a prisoner of him, there is no escape. Any release, through pardon or otherwise, is just a temporary relief. For now, “to keep you [in jail] is no benefit.”

Kacvey, your students might also ask what do these releases and pardons have to do with the crimes that those recently-released have been wrongly and fictitiously accused of? Why have they been subject to double punishment? Beware, the devil in a saint cloak remains a devil till end of its time.

The weak strongman, having put Cambodia during the last 34 years in a state of complete loss of order, has not had a good night sleep since the end of the sham election.

=====
Update:
– on 4 September 2018, UCA News reported: Political analyst flees Cambodia after threats to daughter – Recently released Kim Sok warned by caller to stop criticizing Hun Sen’s government
– on 8 September 2018, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported: Long Beach resident held political prisoner for years in Cambodia safely returns to U.S.

On 15 August 2018

16 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Governance, Institution, International, Issue, Politics

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My dear Kacvey,

Did you have time to breathe a little bit with a glass of iced tea after those announcements from both the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk and Washington?

With allowance given for the difference of time zone, the sycophant nec (like in “pain in the …”) announced, as reported by AFP, that Cambodia ruling party sweeps parliament after vote with no opposition.

The weak strongman had just the time to brag in his Facebook account about the horrid and crooked victory on the sham election, Reuters reported from Washington that the U.S. says it is expanding visa bans over ‘flawed’ Cambodia poll.

And oh boy, what a slap under the eye of the weak strongman! And the Dirty Dozen, or Dirty Seventeen, must have been working hard on the phone to their relatives or handlers in the US. Meanwhile, their ambassador in Washington is nowhere to be seen or heard of. He’s just too small to face such a big political summer hurricane! And their new permanent representative to the UN hasn’t even known what is the difference between the UN and the US.

Meanwhile the lord of the Northern Capital has congratulated the weak strongman for being a docile vassal by keeping the Chinese overseas possession a fertile terrain for Chinese casinos and thugs and settlers from the Mainland.

Kacvey, more update will be forthcoming.

A Horrid and Crooked Victory

11 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Event, Governance, Institution, Politics

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My dear Kacvey,

The 29 July 2018 foregone conclusion was no surprise to the weak strongman that he had to vomit his tainted pride by declaring that his party had won the entire 125 seats, that his parliament would meet in mid-September and that his autocratic government will be formed the following day; all of those even before his sycophantic and enslaved NEC had issued the official tallies or whatever.

29 July 2018 has gone and the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk remains the same, some part of it under the monsoon water, the military and police display before the election as a stupid pretext to intimidate any demonstration or disruption was all paper tiger, and the only noise that come out of the boring atmosphere is the barking sounds of two rabid dogs vociferating idiotically against each other at 9,934 Km apart through their Facebook postings.

The election and its campaign process was engineered and orchestrated by the weak strongman to such a point that he himself started to doubt its outcome by pretending to campaign energetically with mass rallies as never seen before. The fox was running alone against 19 freshly hatched chicks in the race track supervised by the fox owner and his handlers. The fox won and made a copious meal out of the 19 chicks. And it claims victory. A fox is an animal, a beast. If a man is a fox, he’s also a beast.

Kacvey, your students must have spent post-electoral time sharing their thoughts that seemed to be frozen as a dark and thick cloud of uncertainty had come down to envelop the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk:

where was the long line of voters waiting to cast their ballots justifying 82.1% turnout?
who were there to ensure that every ballot was genuine and legit and authentically casted by each voter? (Please do not waste your time with the zombies monitors, as zombies are zombies!)
why does the NEC that pretends to be independent let the weak strongman unhingedly declare victory with back-up percentage?
why does it take so long to tally the ballots?
regardless of the number of votes he collected, how many of those were cast under fear, threat or intimidation?
where are the voices of candidates? why is the weak strongman the only person who talks, and the more he talks, the more nonsense comes out?

The weak strongman had been beaten up in the field of propaganda: the whole world – Oops! except the Northern Capital – vehemently condemned the election and its foregone outcome. No one has come to its rescue from shame and disgrace. The phrase is “sham election.” After 33 years of power and a “sham election” is handed to him to swallow; he has to swallow what he spat out: his autocratic organization and machination of the whole electoral process to ensure his own victory: a victory without glory and honor, and devoid of value and morality. As the old saying goes: there is no honor among thieves.

The pride of a young Khmer Rouge fighting spirit has faded away under the appearance of an old and frail body of incurable corruption and dictatorial mind.

A victory without a fight is indignant of a warrior. A samurai will never accept it. A bitter and coward victory, even a fighting cock would never accept it. Ah, because the weak strongman feels the bitterness and acerbity in the mind of his sycophants or corrupt supporters. The latter silently disapproved and resented, otherwise:

where are the joy, the excitement and the ecstasy of a victory long and hard fought?
was the lack of joy, elation, glee and euphoria commensurate with level of public dislike and unhappiness?
where are the fanfares, the singers and dancers executing their joyous mood to the sounds of drums and trumpets blaring the music of victory?
where is the press conference in front of a forest of microphones answering tough questions on the raison d’être of electoral victory, satisfaction and dignity, instead of the same, monotonous, sterile, meaningless and staged monologues in front of the stone-faced garment workers?
where are the parades of motorcycles or Lexus transporting the people in white shirts waving their party banners?
where is the offering to the monks who share the corrupt political ideology and practice?
where is the celebration that resembles past victory?

The answer is simple:

past victory was DEMOCRATIC, and games were played by the rules;
29 July 2018 victory is AUTOCRATIC, and rules of the games were voluntarily thrown into the cesspool.

The weak strongman is ashamed of himself. He thought the world will come to embrace his victory with a laurel crown, instead the world shun him.

The weak strongman is tired of being alone and lonely sitting on the highest chair and above the clouds; he can’t see what’s happening beneath the clouds, in Kg Som for example. His weak eye is getting weaker, his ears do not want to listen to or hear any voice of reason or wisdom from non-sycophants. His mouth still talks big but all other parts have already “depreciated”. His heart has left the Inner River for the Northern Capital to which he vassalizes the land of the Khmer.

The weak strongman will continue his journey of autocracy and dictatorship over the heads of Cambodians, but he will face very serious challenges that are the consequences of his own immoral victory; he will face the problems that he, by design, has created internally and internationally.

No woman or man, no matter how long she/he has been victim of “bak sbaat”, can no longer lend unconditional support to a weak strongman whose shoulders and joints suffer from the weight of 33 years of carrying on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge.

No man can govern his unhappy subjects.

The Dirty Dozen + Others

29 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, Governance, Justice, Politics, Social

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My dear Kacvey,

Two dates in June 2018 had shaken the confidence and serenity by which the autocrat has been behaving himself amid the institutional and political storm that he voluntarily created since September 2017 to protect his personal and despotic ambition and the economic and financial interests of his tribe in view of the legislative elections scheduled for 29 July 2018.

Bu in the following month, more revelations have come from various news organizations that hit the head of the nail harder and harder.

For our records:

On 12 June 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, in its Press Releases, publicly identified the commander of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit (PMBU) for being the leader of an entity involved in serious human rights abuse.
On 27 June 2018, Human Rights Watch, in a scathing and unsparing 213-page report, publicly and nominally identified 12 generals in the security forces who form the backbone of an abusive and authoritarian political regime who are responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations in Cambodia.
On 13 July 2018, Al Jazeera aired a YouTube by @AJ101East⁩ and ⁦@jolleyma⁩ identifying a corrupt official in the tax department.
On 20 July 2018, Global Witness identified four senators “who profits from the death of Cambodia’s democracy.”
On 23 July 2018, in an article titled “Paradise Papers Tie Cambodian Army Chief’s Wife to Tropical Tax Heaven,” The Irrawaddy identified the wife of one of the Dirty Dozen as reported in the Panama papers.

Keeping track of numbers with new total: The Dirty Seventeen [Dirty 17].

When truth speaks, its voice is louder than the thunder and carries beyond the horizon.

So far, the autocrat has not made any official comments yet, his barking dogs doing the dirty work for him in lieu of his silence. Let him brew his reactions in his own heart and mind, but whatever he feels his autocratic machinery will certainly have no ability to rebut the issues point by point, line by line, or item by item. The revelation is like a sharp arrow piercing the heart of the wolf to bleed in its loneliness.

Kacvey, there must be some children or relatives of the “Dirty Dozen + Others” among your law school students. How would they hold up their face in front of their friends and peers whose parents are law-abiding, honest and accountable? The burden that corrupt fathers impugn on their children’s shoulders is so heavy and the shame that those children have to endure in years to come is so devastating that even history could not save them.

Ask Lon Nol’s or Pol Pot’s children!

The Old Fox and the Nineteen Cockerels

29 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by KhmerPAC in Event, Governance, Institution, Issue, Politics, Social

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My dear Kacvey,

You and your students will face a difficult choice on 29 July 2018:
– to vote or not to vote?
– to vote by casting a void ballot or to vote for which party?
– how could conscience dictate?

Damn you vote, damn you don’t.
Damn you vote, damn the autocrat wins (by predetermination).
Damn you don’t vote, damn the autocrat still wins (by predetermination).
It’s a lose-lose situation, for the voters and/or non-voters.
When citizen’s sovereign rights and freedom of choice are trampled by autocracy that disguises itself as a democracy, crass as it is!

What a difference since the communal elections on 4 June 2017! Polyphemus, being rejected by the people spit fire and burned democracy to death. And he’s trying to disguise his gullible acts by promoting his autocratic democracy through multiplication of new parties that have never ever proven that they have done anything to Cambodia and its people: 11 parties at the 4 June 2017 communal elections, and now 19 parties for the legislative on 29 July 2018. Numbers are phony in their democratic meaning.

The scenario designed and orchestrated by the autocrat resembles a field controlled for more than 30 years by an old fox with 19 newly hatched chicks. Since all parties-chicks seem to be male, let call them cockerels. This reminds of a Latin phrase ‘Ovem lupo commitere’ that could be interpreted as “foxes sneak in chicken coops and eat the chickens.”

To push the pretense to an absurdity level, through the politicization of Buddhism, they set up a drawing ceremony on 29 May 2018 to attribute number to the 20 parties. Calculated fortune is that autocracy gets number 20 so that the autocrat’s sycophants could bark that democracy is well served. What does that type of number serve anyway, since victory for the ruling party has been already schemed, designed and planned since September 2017!

Boo! Boo!

Kacvey, your students might ask:
– what if the predetermined victory would not turn out to be glorious or glorified, under the heavy pressure of international opinion, the autocrat decided at the last-minute to open the gate of Thbong Khmoum jail and release the falsely-charged prisoner?
– would he postpone the election so as to allow the opposition to organize the campaign or would he not postpone it and argue on the 5-year ban?
– in June 2017, there were 7,107,395 voters, out of which 3,540,056 went to the ruling party, and 3,056,824 to the opposition. You do the math, Kacvey. What if 4 or 5 millions of combined ruling or opposition voters did not show up on 29 July 2018?! A tsunami of non-voters! Khmer electorate understands better and better the power of their voices and secret ballots since UNTAC elections in May 1993, and it continues to learn and appreciate it as times go forward;
– what if millions of voters show up at and flood the polling stations 15 minutes before the poll closing time or sunset?
– what if those millions voted for the party numbered “21”, like playing golf’s “19th hole”?
– would the autocrat be happy or satisfied with a victory with 99.99% ballots in his favor, or would he play false modesty by allowing some parties (such as for example the scum party that sits in the opposition seats in the national assembly and the senate after the opposition was annihilated) to get 10 to 15 seats out of the total of 123?
– what if the autocrat politics through Facebook that he feeds many, many hours per day has a negative return despite his (authentic or otherwise) millions and millions “likes”?
– in the mean time, what if Hypnos could re-play the trick against Zeus on the esplanade of Angkor Wat?

A lot of stuff to think about, Kacvey!

Power Must Be Returned to the People

25 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by KhmerPAC in Governance, Human Rights, Institution, Issue, Justice, Politics, Social

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My dear Kacvey,

A conversation between two fictitious Khmer was overheard on the bank of the Mékong near Préah Ang Dangkoeur shrine in a Blood Moon night:

Khè Séiha: So, you did it on 16 November 2017, huh!
Dèk Chréss: I did what?
Khè Séiha: Come on! You arrested him on the night of September on trumped treason charge, locked him securely up in Trapèang Phlong, dissolved his party, and took the 55 seats and distributed them to the scums.
Dèk Chréss: Easy job, I just snap my fingers and all the stooges move like crazy. And when I scream a little bit all the 55 run away like rabbits seeing a flashlight.
Khè Séiha: Now, you’ve become Caesar!
Dèk Chréss: Not only Caesar, but all the dictators in the contemporary world: I’m the longest living tyrant, and still counting.
Khè Séiha: You’re going higher and higher and you’re not afraid of being dizzy and falling?
Dèk Chréss: I’m on power drug prescription, and don’t need antidote. The sky is the limit.
Khè Séiha: You don’t care of what had happened to guys like Bhutto, Saddam, Gaddafi … even Mugabe or Saleh?
Dèk Chréss: Look, I pay a very high price for Khmer and foreign bodyguards to protect me. If there is a hole in the wall, so be it!
Khè Séiha: Le Duan, Le Duc Tho and Le Duc Anh put “the 2 December 1978 gang in Snuol” including you in power for more than 30 years ago, don’t you now have enough of it? Moreover, all three of them have long gone, and been successively replaced by others. You’re getting old and physically weak by the day, you know or don’t you? Bodyguards have to carry you up the stairs of Angkor Wat terrace, you couldn’t even sit straight, you almost tripped with the Bangladesh prime minister, you’re puffer and puffer, slower and slower, you can’t barely turn your hip, you’re losing hair, you have black spots on your face and sagging eyelid, your incoherent and sometimes self-contradictory speech! Why hanging on?
Dèk Chréss: You’re talking nonsense! I know I’m doing good. Singaporean doctors give me clean sheet of health.
Khè Séiha: You know, doctors treat the sick and do not feel the pain or shame for you. Your pain is not theirs and they don’t give a shit for your shame. You pay them to tell the world that you’re OK, right or not? And you know damn well that you don’t feel good inside yourself!
Dèk Chréss: I’ve already told you I’m OK. And I prayed big at Angkor Wat, you know! My health is nothing compared with my ambition.
Khè Séiha: You pray after committing unforgivable sins against the people? You think that Preah Buddha has no divine sense of justice? You’re committing more sins by involving Buddha in your scheme. This is where things are getting tricky: you’ve been going through many periods of time: KR with Pol Pot, deserting him to go to East of the border to be under its protection and influence, fighting Pol Pot’s remnants, UNTAC, putting Samdach Euv back on the throne, smashing his son’s party, winning some elections, and now this: crashing the opposition and putting Samdach Euv’s son back under your armpits. No man can manage politics through different eras of CHANGE of global thinking and globalization. What more do you want for yourself?
Dèk Chréss: I have not finished the job that I began: 1) I’m selfish, and I can’t accept that Khmer do not submit to me. 2) You talked earlier about the 3 “Le”; I’m bonded to them as long as I live, and I don’t even want to think what would happen if I “un-bond” myself from them. 3) What I’ve made to feed my family and my power is not self-sustaining.
Khè Séiha: Then, you’re no different from a pig; the more a pig eats and is fed, the more it wants to eat, until the farmer puts it in a truck to the slaughterhouse.
Dèk Chréss: I was a KR, and later a commie in the Eastern country. As such, I know the rules of the game that were taught to me. The rest is self-taught and self-surviving.
Khè Séiha: Self-surviving at the top of the political scale?
Dèk Chréss: That’s right.
Khè Séiha: At the expense of others?
Dèk Chréss: Of course! I’m the big beast ruling this political jungle, ain’t I?!
Khè Séiha: You surely are, but the rules of the game have changed since the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and UNTAC.
Dèk Chréss: Why invoking that Peace Accords after 25 years? They officialized and baptized me then. And I rule!
Khè Séiha: You do rule, but there are new rules that you have to abide by.
Dèk Chréss: I already did during earlier elections, but the 2013 elections, Kem Ley’s funerals and the 2017 elections gave me goose bumps and send me unexpected and unintended messages.
Khè Séiha: You’re clever enough, why don’t you learn from it and re-draw your philosophical or moral lessons?
Dèk Chréss: I’ve spent it all during these 30 years and nothing new could be invented anymore.
Khè Séiha: Isn’t this an omen that your time and era are up for change?
Dèk Chréss: True, but as I said earlier I have not finished what I began.
Khè Séiha: So, you persist to go on, don’t you?
Dèk Chréss: I have no choice. They are bigger than me, they rule me and the rules from the Peace Accords and UNTAC do not work for me anymore.
Khè Séiha: So, you change the rules to fit your renewed determination.
Dèk Chréss: Yes, changing the rules and applying severe repression to get rid of the opposition once and for all. I have to survive.
Khè Séiha: Did you expect that once the opposition is dissolved, things will be back to normal like before?
Dèk Chréss: No I didn’t. I miscalculated one thing: mixing up the media and civil societies with the opposition. Before, I only had the opposition to go against, but now I have 3 opponents combined together: opposition, media and civil societies. What makes it worst for me is that this combined force has the support of the international community against which I’m ALONE.
Khè Séiha: Alone?
Dèk Chréss: Yes, alone. Alone. Alone. Not even with C, J and VN; they keep on saying they either “don’t interfere with my internal affairs” or support “stability” but nothing comes out of their capitals louder and stronger than Washington and Brussels have said and put into effect so far… Disheartening!
Khè Séiha: Are they your real friends or just politically opportunistic and self-centered friends?
Dèk Chréss: I’m trying to figure it out.
Khè Séiha: Why so? Strange?
Dèk Chréss: My mistake is that on the one hand the “issues of islands” in the South China Sea are no longer in the agenda of the world or ASEAN, and on the other J and VN are pissed off with me as they saw that I sold my entire soul to defend C in every place and instance on “issue of islands” even against J and VN positions.
Khè Séiha: In other words, you’re fucked, domestically and internationally.
Dèk Chréss: More or less. That’s why I become more and more brutal with the opposition in order to show C, J and VN that I am in control no matter how insane and crazy options I have taken. They know that I’m in a jam, and what they’ve been doing is to hope and wait that I could come up with some kind of “Khmer” arrangements that would alleviate internal political tension that I have personally created to preserve my status.
Khè Séiha: Are you saying that C, J and VN are not going to challenge Washington and Brussels?
Dèk Chréss: They won’t, because, to them, Cambodia’s internal issue is not worth fighting for.
Khè Séiha: Are you then considering yourself as nothing more than a cheap puppet?
Dèk Chréss: Oh, oh, no such strong words, please. Politics is always a gamble. If you play, you have to play it hard. Nothing is given free.
Khè Séiha: Sorry, I’m a little emotional as I see what you’ve been doing is totally irrational and insane.
Dèk Chréss: You might be right, but this is the game I chose to play.
Khè Séiha: To play and not winning?
Dèk Chréss: No matter, I slog it on. Too late to change direction?
Khè Séiha: Really? Who said?
Dèk Chréss: Nobody has said anything to me about “changing direction” because they know that I’m not a person who eats my own words. I don’t want to become a “chkè!”
Khè Séiha: A chkè? You must be joking! Has any Khmer politician turned into a chkè if she/he doesn’t keep her/his promise or words?
Dèk Chréss: The pressure is extraordinarily heavy on me now as I am always running behind the rapid flow of events.
Khè Séiha: How about your Frakesh News and Tamarind Tree? Are they doing anything to help you going forward or are they just stupid sycophants that you like to surround you?
Dèk Chréss: They are my mouth piece in disguise, therefore they contribute nothing to my thinking. They bark when I throw a bone to them before I open the door.
Khè Séiha: Look like you know the type of quagmire you’re in, but yet you remain stubborn.
Dèk Chréss: I’m thinking.
Khè Séiha: You know you can’t go on behaving like this, don’t you?
Dèk Chréss: Yes I do, but to change course is not what I’m born to do. I’m born to be what I want to be, on my own terms, not on other people’s terms.
Khè Séiha: Generally, working people retire from their work after more or less 30 years. Why do Khmer leaders never think about that option, but rather hanging on to it like a baby monkey hanging on to the belly of its mother?
Dèk Chréss: Samdach Euv and I are the 2 persons who have these 3 common features: low education, never working as employees, and top leaders! Retirement is therefore not in our language.
Khè Séiha: So, you must then remember what happened on 18 March 1970?
Dèk Chréss: Ha! Ha! 18 March 1970 made me for who I am on 9 January 1979 onward!
Khè Séiha: But since 9 January 1979 till now, 29 years have passed: different time, different events, different thinking, different technological era, different people everywhere; it makes you a “passé.”
Dèk Chréss: Being a “passé” in Cambodia is a licence to future…
Khè Séiha: … on which you have no control.
Dèk Chréss: True, I don’t have control over time, but I’m determined to have absolute control and power over people.
Khè Séiha: Are you driving towards a cliff? You took the power from the people and you still continue to oppress them?
Dèk Chréss: Choice, I don’t have. I’ll break them until they are broken.
Khè Séiha: You’re becoming more KR than the KR you’ve been. If so, you’re slowly opening the ECCC’s door to welcome you as case 008 or 009 or 010 or whatever. Hope you don’t forget that a case against you has already been registered at the ICC at The Hague.
Dèk Chréss: Don’t talk misfortune, please.
Khè Séiha: You miserably create your own misfortune. If you break them, you will never repair or mend them. Sometime broken china vase could be restored, but the man who can restore the trust and confidence of the people after having broken them to pieces hasn’t been born yet.
Dèk Chréss: What’s the alternative?
Khè Séiha: Are you thinking about reviewing the whole enchilada?
Dèk Chréss: I’m listening.
Khè Séiha: You’re still have the power, but the power that you took from the people after July 2017 elections must be returned to its legitimate owner.
Dèk Chréss: How can I? Abrogating those laws? Releasing the opposition from Trapèang Phlong?
Khè Séiha: That’s right. If those laws were created by men of yours, they could be dismantled by men of yours. If the opposition was arrested and jailed by men of yours, he could be released by men of yours. Men create, men destroy, men recreate.
Dèk Chréss: It sounds simple but I can’t do it.
Khè Séiha: Why not? Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Dèk Chréss: It will involve a hell lot of things and my guys will be wondering what’s going on?
Khè Séiha: Since when you worry about those guys who jump when you tell them to jump?! If you could organize everything to reach this point, who tells you that you can’t undo those things?
Dèk Chréss: You have a point.
Khè Séiha: Moreover, you engineer and orchestrate everything, and your name is nowhere to be seen on those papers, why not be a little gentle to history about yourself and your family?
Dèk Chréss: I can feel the quiet resistance and the air of defiance in the eyes of the garment workers and my FB no longer carries weight that it once did.
Khè Séiha: You mean credibility and popularity?
Dèk Chréss: Yeah, both of them plus mockery and daily virulent challenges.
Khè Séiha: Critical time calls for critical thinking and analysis; you are standing on the highest point of your fortune wheel, and it spells peril for you.
Dèk Chréss: It’s past midnight; time to go.
Khè Séiha: We talked earlier about Caesar. Don’t forget: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. In other words, render unto the people the power that is people’s. Good night!

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Khmer Politics Alternatives Circle

~ Thinking outside the box about Cambodia

Category Archives: Governance

Is Thbong Khmoum Jail Door Now Open?

On 15 August 2018

A Horrid and Crooked Victory