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.

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!

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!

“A Plausible Case” – 莫须有冤狱

23 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by KhmerPAC in Culture, History, Justice, Stories

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My dear Kacvey,

Let take a short break from the dirty and insane politics in the City Tonlé Buon Mouk and look back into the Chinese history during the Song Dynasty (宋代- 960-1279 A.D.)

In the Southern Song (北宋) there was a patriot and a general by the name of Yue Fei (岳飞). Yue Fei was known not only for his military prowess and successes, but also for his high ethical standards. To encourage him, his mother asked him to take off his shirt. She then tattooed four Chinese characters on his back: 尽忠报国 (jing zhong bao guo) “serve the country with the utmost loyalty.” Now able to fulfill both his mother’s wish and his duty to the country, Yue Fei promptly went off to battle. Yue Fei was undefeated in battle and was a national symbol of hope during difficult times.

In 1127, several years before Yue Fei became a general, the Jurchens (Jin 金) invaded northern China, forcing the Song dynasty out of its capital Kaifeng and taking Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗, and Emperor Qinzong 宋钦宗, and hundreds of palace officials prisoners including a minister named Qin Hui 秦桧 and his wife Lady Wang 王氏. This marked the end of the Northern Song dynasty 北宋, and the beginning of the Southern Song dynasty under Emperor Gaozong 宋高宗.

While being prisoner in the Jin court, Qin Hui groveled before Emperor Taizong 金太宗 and succeeded in impressing him with his ability to serve. He got himself appointed to a position in the Jin military staff. Meanwhile, the the Jin Dynasty witnessed with alarm the steady growth of anti-Jin forces in the Southern Song Dynasty and the pro-Song insurgency in the north. Staunchly hawkish generals such as Yue Fei and Han Shizhong posed a particular challenge. It was then decided that Qin Hui would be sent back to the south as a mole in the Song government. In 1130 A.D. Qin Hui and his wife were slipped back into Southern Song territory.

In 1138, Gaozong promoted Qin Hui to be Chief Minister. Then Gaozong and Qin Hui made up their mind to reconcile with the Jin Dynasty and put him in charge of deliberations with the Jin. Yue Fei, Han Shizhong 韩世忠, and a large number of officials at court criticized the peace overtures. Aided by his control of the Censorate, Qin Hui purged his enemies and continued negotiations. In 1141 the Jin and Song agreed to a treaty that designated the Yellow River as border between the two states and recognized Gaozong as a “subject” of the Jin. But because there remained opposition to the treaty in both the courts of the Jin and Song, the treaty never came into effect.

Meanwhile, Qin Hui set to work to engineer Yue Fei’s downfall. Qin Hui wrote a memorial which denounced Yue Fei for his arrogance. He invented out of white cloth the story that yue Fei refused to send his army to relieve defenders of Huaxi when they were under Jin attack.

Yue Fei knew that Qin Hui was out to get him, so he volunteered to resign from his post of deputy Military Affairs Commissioner. Emperor Gaozong readily approved his resignation.

The matter did not stop there. One of the top generals, Zhang Jun 张俊 , once Yue Fei’s superior, became jealous of Yue Fei for his feats on the battlefield. Aware of Zhang Jun’s resentment of Yue Fei’s successes, Qin Hui in collusion with Zhang Jun incited subalterns Wang Gui 王贵 and Wang Jun 王俊 in the Yue Army to falsely accuse another subaltern Zhang Xian 张宪 of intending to take control of Xiangyang 襄阳 in order to mount a mutiny to help Yue Fei wrest back his control over the army. They also falsely accused Yue Fei’s son, Yue Yun 岳云, of writing to Zhang Xian to make secret plans for mutiny.

Based on the false testimony of the traitors Wang Gui and Wang Jun, Qin Hui arrested Zhang Xian and put him in the jail of the Court of Judicial Review, where he was tortured. However, Zhang Xian adamantly refused to confess to the fabricated crime. Soon after, Qin Hui requested Emperor Gaozong to order the arrest of Yue Fei and Yue Yun and put them on trial before the Court of Judicial Review.

When Qin Hui’s people arrived to arrest him, Yue Fei said with a smile: “上有天，下有地，会证明我是无罪的。 Heaven and Earth be my witness! I will be vindicated and cleared.”

When Yue Fei and Yue Yun were taken to the Court of Judicial Review, they found a blooded, almost unrecognizable Zhang Xian covered with bruises and injuries sustained during his torture. The sight filled Yue fei with sadness and anger.

The trial judge was Moqi Xie, a Qin Hui political ally. He placed the false testimony of Wang Gui and Wang Jun before Yue Fei and asked in a stern voice: “Hasn’t the government been good to you? Why are you planning a mutiny?”

Yue Fei replied: “上有天，下有地，会证明我是无罪的。I have done nothing against the government. You are in charge of law and justice. You must not use trumped-up charges to frame officials loyal to the government and country.”

Other officials present also echoed Moqi Xie, insisting that Yue Fei had seditious intentions. Yue Fei understood the futility of arguing with these partisans of Qin Hui’s clique. He said with a deep sigh: “我今天落在奸贼的手里，虽然有一片忠心，也没法申诉了。I’ve fallen into the hands of a bunch of traitorous thugs. There is no point in trying to prove to you my loyalty and patriotism.”

Qin Hui had assigned Vice Censor-in-Chief He Zhu 何铸 to try Yue Fei. When he began questioning Yue Fei, Yue Fei pulled up his shirt without uttering a word and showed He Zhu his bare back. What greeted He Zhu’s eyes were the four deeply tattooed characters: “尽忠报国 – Serve the country with the utmost loyalty.” He Zhu was so shaken that he could not go on with the inquiry. He remanded Yue Fei to his cell. After reviewing some more material related to the case, he could find no evidence to support the allegation of Yue Fei’s seditious intent. He truthfully reported his conclusion to Qin Hui.

Sensing He Zhu’s sympathy for Yue Fei, Qin Hui took him off the case and instructed Moqi Xie to continue fabricating charges against Yue Fei. Moqi Xie insisted that Yue Fei had written to Zhang Xian to make plans for a mutiny. Unable to provide any material evidence, they alleged Zhang Xian had destroyed the letters.

Moqi Xie put the three defendants through more torture, but Yue Fei would not give them the satisfaction of a confession. One day, when Moqi Xie tried to force Yue Fei to compose a confession, Yue Fei wrote down these eight characters: “天日眧眧，天日眧眧 – Heaven be my witness, heaven be my witness.”

After dragging on for two months, the trial still had not produced any conclusion. Everyone in government knew Yue Fei had been framed. However, some who had the courage to petition the Emperor to clear Yue Fei’s name themselves became victims of Qin Hui’s reprisals.

The venerated Han Shizhong went to see Qin Hui, and demanded evidence of Yue Fei’s alleged plans for a mutiny. Qin Hui said in an arrogant and cavalier manner: “岳飞和张宪的信，虽然没有证据，但是这件事莫须有。 Although there is no evidence of Yue Fei’s writing to Zhang Xian, one can make a plausible case.”

Han Shizhong said angrily: ” ‘莫须有’ 三个字，怎能叫天下人心服！How can your plausible case convince the country? Han Shizhong’s repeated effort proved fruitless and he resigned as Military Affairs Commissioner.

One day after work, Qin Hui was drinking with his wife Wang by a window. Wang noticed him fiddling with an orange, absent-mindedly gouging the peel with his fingernail. Wang, who was even more ruthless than Qin Hui, understood that Qin Hui was still of two minds about whether to kill Yue Fei immediately. Wang said with a sinister snort: “你这老头儿，好没有决断，要知道缚虎容易放虎难啊！You indecisive coot! It’s easier to tie a tiger down than to set it free.”

Wang’s warning helped make up Qin Hui’s mind. He immediately wrote a note which was secretly delivered to the prison. In a night in January 1142 A.D. the patriotic national hero Yue Fei was murdered. He was only 39. Yue Yun and Zhang Xian suffered the same fate that night.

After Yue Fei’s murder, a prison warden in Lin’an 临安 (today’s Hangzhou 杭州) named Kui Shun 隗顺 secretly buried his remains. Yue Fei’s name was cleared only after the death of Emperor Gaozong, and his remains were moved to Qixia Peak 栖霞岭 for proper burial. A Yue Fei temple was added later east of his tomb. A statue of Yue Fei clad in battle gear now sits in the great hall of the Yue Temple 岳庙. Above the statue hangs an awe-inspiring board inscribed with four characters in Yue Fei’s handwriting: “还我河山 – Give back my country.” Opposite the tomb are four cast-iron kneeling figures with their hands tied behind their backs. They are the despised and hated Qin Hui, his wife Wang, Moqi Xie and Zhang Jun that for centuries ordinary Chinese have visited specifically to spit on. This arrangement is designed to reflect popular admiration for a national hero and revulsion for selfish and corrupted officials and traitors.

The Weak and Desperate Strongman

09 Monday Oct 2017

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

≈ 1 Comment

My dear Kacvey,

By now, you must be extremely sick and tired of the word “strongman” or “strong man” that every media refers to the autocrat that is not only fighting the flood of the monsoon in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk but also has become demoniacally despotic against the opposition and its members, the media and the civil societies. Since Noteworthy News page has chronologically and extensively documented on what has been going on since 2 September 2017, let for our part talk about something else and try to answer some of the questions raised by your students, like why the strongman is weak and so desperate. Oxymoronical, isn’t it?!

Merriam-Webster provides two definitions to the word “strongman”:
– a politician or leader who uses violence or threats;
– a man who performs in a circus and who is very strong.

However, Thesaurus gives three definitions:
– a person who performs remarkable feats of strength, as in a circus;
– a political leader who controls by force; dictator;
– the most powerful or influential person in an organization or business, by reason of skill in the formulation and execution of plans, work, etc.

Merriam-Webster gives the definition of “weak” as: lacking strength, mentally or intellectually deficient, not factually grounded or logically presented, not able to function properly, deficient in the usual or required ingredients, not having or exerting authority or political power.

Merriam-Webster also defines “desperate” as: having lost hope, giving no ground for hope, involving or employing extreme measures in an attempt to escape defeat or frustration, suffering extreme need or anxiety, involving extreme danger or possible disaster.

The questionsthat your students have asked could be reformulated as follows:
– What motivates the autocrat to adopt current policy of dictatorial repression towards Cambodian people and institutions?
– How strong is the strongman in ruling Cambodia?

Before going forward, there is an unmovable and solid premise that has to be anchored in one’s mind: The autocrat was a revolutionary communist, a rebel Khmer Krâhâm and a full-fledged member of the genocidal Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. The fact that he betrayed his movement and sought political refuge and ideological mentorship in a foreign country changes nothing to his conviction and loyalty to what he had learned in his revolutionary youth: power, once acquired, must be preserved at any cost. Once a Khmer Rouge, always a Khmer Rouge.

In Noteworthy News page, your students can find plenty of views, opinions, information, analysis and comments by a plethora of pundits, writers, journalists and reporters to whom appreciation and gratitude are honorably extended because without them our knowledge would be blind of both eyes.

Now back to the above questions of motive and despair.

Kacvey, you may recall that in the past this subject has been touched upon in various letters e.g: Parsing an anguished statement, The CUP is empty, 2016: The Year of Mortal Repression, Can They Really Prevent “Color Revolution”?, Generation “DEMOCRACY”, If He Were Overthrown, What Does That Mean For The Country?

Fear is a new-born monster that haunts the autocrat since July 2013; that monster became bigger in July 2016. He can’t wipe out from his mind and eye the million of Cambodians flowing in the streets of the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk and also towards Takéo. Never in his lifetime has he ever been greeted similarly; never has he ever been acknowledged and received so warmly and wholeheartedly by the mass of million; never has he ever been solemnly and proudly respected by the mass of million. The ego was shot and wounded by an invisible arrow made of Khmer conscience and awakening, a mass of million of Khmer citizens that he refuses to acknowledge their true love for the country and the democracy that they have just been endowed. The message was clear and visible, but he can’t see or nor read due to optical deficiency, perhaps.

Then came the results of the 2017 communal elections. The “dot” on the “i”. The monster has grown up and played hard, but quietly. The fear has increased in intensity and there is no medical remedy available, even from Singapore! Paid consultants could not provide different mathematical and scientific projections. The trend is now known and unchangeable towards July 2018. The party base is stunt, quiet, shuts their mouth, shrinks and feels embarrassed. Higher up in the party echelon, same attitude of languor and lassitude. At Koh Pich, what he sees is rows and rows of uninterested, cold, incurious and insensible audience. Fear and uncertainty are all over their face as well. Garments workers are now cajoled day after day with promise of every sort including photo-ops of casual lunches “à la Khmère.” But the inconvincibles remain inconvincible; they know the difference between hypocrisy and sincerity, principle and baloney. Dignity is always behind their mask and the smile at the sewing machines.

Fear has been joined by two new companions: panic and despair.

10 months to go and the party is lethargic: no new ideas nor thinkers, no new platform, no perspective nor inspiration, and no road map to the future. Party, assembly, senate, government, justice are the same marionettes executing and marching to the order of the autocrat. On stage, marionettes look happy because they are brainless and manipulated; but when the show is over they are a pile of discarded and valueless puppets. What to do to escape the inevitable? Without power and with their marketable skills below zero, they would be reduced to the status of being ruled and governed; it would be too shameful to accept it. This is where the old Khmer Rouge devilish tactic resurrects and creeps out: dictatorship, repression, jail and guns. To hell with democracy! To hell with rule of law! To hell with respect of human rights and dignity. To hell with freedom of expression or association! To hell with whoever disagrees with me!

Fear in facing the 2018 elections and possibly losing it is the internal weakness of the man who lacks courage and prowess and who feels so insecure to be a real man in the battle of ideas, perspectives, programs and vision for the country and its people, in other words , the battle at the ballot box.
Where is his intestinal fortitude to face the challenge of a democratic, free and fair election? His heart and guts fail.
Does red revolutionary valor melt in the mass of accumulated corrupted wealth that he can’t enjoy in-or-out of the country? Fear of losing that wealth weakens the audacity and brazenness that he once had in poverty and rebellion time.
Does the man at the age of 65 still have the physical and intellectual daringness and intrepidity of his youth to contest the young democracy and the thirst for freedom aspired by new and different generations of Cambodians? No man is made of stone unless he’s a sculpted statue standing alone and decorated with pigeons droppings.
Can he, in his loneliness, picture lines of voters throughout the country dropping their ballot in the box? He can’t anymore when such image of possible reality gives him cold feet. A man or a chicken!?

If fear and despair are not the motive, let him prove that he can enter the electoral arena with all the contestants like in July 2017, that he is a man who is not afraid of another man in front of the ballot box where the people of Cambodia are the judges and arbiters. Mano a mano, with ballots as gloves. Once he’s in the arena, let close the gate and let the monster loose! Ave!

If he won fair and square, he would be able to restore his dignity and his ego recover its pride and vanity. If he lost, history may have nice words towards his legacy.

Not long ago – courtesy of The Phnom Penh reporting – he also publicly and ignominiously said to the garment workers that “the 1991 Paris Peace Accords .. was dead in the water.” He was showing off his ignorance to the local workers, but he has no courage to officially and diplomatically communicate his belief to the 18 State that were signatories to the said Peace Agreements. A weak strongman talks the talk but never walks the walk. A fool has a big mouth and a very small brain.

It’s not yet too late to make a trajectory adjustment. Failing that, the presumed strongman is not only weak and desperate, but he turns himself into a coward dictator.And as the world has known, every dictator, past and present, on this planet, commands no respect and admiration from the people he rules, and only sycophants and flatterers shower him with false praise and approval. However, once he’s gone, it’s his descendants who have to live in shame and dishonor. Any memory about Pol Pot, his leader, once?

=====
Update:
– Phnom Penh Post, 24 November 2017: PM warns party of complacency in leaked audio
– Asia Times, 27 November 2017: Is Hun Sen secretly insecure?
– BBC News, 4 December 2017: Hun Sen: Cambodia’s prime minister prays for good fortune

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