The strings in Hun Sen’s rhetorical bow
PHNOM PENH – Between their anodyne pageantry and colorless mission statements about regional economic cooperation, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings are rarely known for their excitement. But on the last day of this month’s annual summit in Phnom Penh, the current chairman of the 10-country bloc, Cambodia’s long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen, did...
More managed democracy for Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia’s senate elections, held on January 29 to select members of the country’s upper house, came and went largely unnoticed. The poll barely registered in the international media, and local critics dismissed it as an undemocratic charade for selecting members to an inert and largely powerless body. Voting for 57 of the...
From tragedy to sham in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia’s United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal will finally begin hearings on Monday in its second case against senior surviving leaders of the former communist Khmer Rouge regime.
REVIEW: ‘The Ideal Man’, by Josh Kurlantzick
On Easter Sunday 1967, Jim Thompson, a prominent businessman and Bangkok expatriate, disappeared while on holiday in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands. The 61-year-old American left his bungalow to take a solitary hike in the hills and never returned.
Southeast Asia’s failing drug war
PHNOM PENH – The communist government of Laos has traditionally taken a harsh stance towards drug use. Shortly after they seized power in late 1975, the communist authorities infamously rounded up hundreds of drug addicts, prostitutes, gamblers, “hippies”, and juvenile delinquents, and imprisoned them on two islands in the Nam Ngum Reservoir north of the...
Cambodian NGOs under the gun
PHNOM PENH – These are tough times for Cambodia’s embattled non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As the government gears up to pass controversial legislation regulating the country’s estimated 2,000 civil society groups, it has drawn strong criticism for a coordinated crackdown on land rights groups working on a foreign donor-funded railway renovation project.
All aboard North Korea’s refugee railroad
PHNOM PENH – In late November 2006, after a long, perilous journey from northeast China, a North Korean national crossed the Vietnamese frontier into Cambodia’s northeast Mondulkiri province. The man, identified only as Ly Hai Long in local media reports, was promptly arrested by Cambodian police, who told a reporter from the Cambodia Daily that...
Split personalities revealed in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – As part of its ongoing release of leaked United States diplomatic cables, the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks this month released its small cache of Cambodia-related dispatches. The 777 cables from the US Embassy in Phnom Penh – an eagerly awaited bounty for Cambodia-watchers and local analysts – span the period from 1992 to...
US cables chart China’s rise in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – On December 18, 2009, Cambodian police rounded up 20 ethnic Uighurs from safe houses in the capital Phnom Penh, where they had arrived earlier in the year seeking political asylum. A day later, the group, which included two infants, was driven to the airport in a bus with shades drawn over the...
Potemkin graft crackdown in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – ON the morning of May 12, Cambodia’s local newspapers ran photos of a bedraggled figure being escorted from a small courthouse. The man, who wore a crumpled green shirt and clutched a water bottle as he leant on the shoulder of a security guard, was Top Chan Sereyvuth, a former prosecutor at...
REVIEW: ‘Cambodia’s Curse’, by Joel Brinkley
In June 2010, diplomats and donors converged on a conference hall in Cambodia’s capital for a meeting with senior government officials. Seated in rows with headphones beaming in live translations, donor representatives listened to key ministers speak about the country’s progress on a series of agreed to good governance reforms.
Limited liability for Khmer Rouge tribunal
PHNOM PENH – Sometime later this year, Cambodia’s war crimes court will convene its second trial at which four ailing Khmer Rouge leaders will face a raft of charges including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The four accused – Khmer Rouge “Brother No 2” Nuon Chea, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, head of...
