How to liberate Cambodia...

News From Cambodia N° 0631E

HOW TO GET CAMBODIAN OUT OF THE IGNORANCE, THE DISEASE, THE MISERY AND THE VIETNAMESE DOMINATION ?

Khemara Jati
Montréal, Québec
July 27th, 2006

Ta Mok died. He died of what? His close relatives say that Ta Mok was in good health before the court was materialized. They asked in vain that Ta Mok should suitably took care outside the prison. Who has interest in his death? Who is the murderer? Did not the famous “Court” become a sinister farce?

The whole world knows that Ta Mok was a war chief. Everybody knows that Ta Mok is not a man who keeps his tongue in his pocket. Such a man is a danger for who ? Who has the interest of his death ?

On the international level, there is in The Hague (Netherlands) the “International Court of Justice” created in 1946 as the main UN judiciary organ. The International Court of Justice judged that Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia.

There are also the “International Penal Courts” created by the UN Security Council in 1999, to judge the generalized and organized massacres etc. Stemming of these “International Penal Courts”, there is an “International Penal Court for former-Yugoslavia” (IPCY), then there is an “International Penal Court for Rwanda” (IPCR).

The IPCY discredited itself after the death of the main accused person Slobodan Milosevic in his prison. On the legal level, a court is always responsible for the life as well as for the death of a charged during his incarceration.

So the “Court to judge the Khmer Rouge leaders” is completely responsible for the death of Ta Mok. Duch is the only accused who still stays in prison. Does not he risk his life if he decides to say anything against the orders of the regime in place? Who feels safe in the current prisons under this regime? Which witness can feel safe? Even outside prisons? Why so incensed to organize such a so-called “Court” pretending at the international standards in a country ravaged by corruption, with judges in the orders of the power in place and with an Order of the Lawyers which does not respect the democratic elections ?

After the suspect death of Ta Mok this “Court” with the heavy costs does not already become a sinister farce? Such a “Tribunal” already moribund and a born dying person.

Who has interest in this “Court” ? Those who finance this “Court” ? Can this “Tribunal” makes any judgment against the interests of those who pay for it ?

Is the famous “Court to judge some Khmer Rouge dying person leaders” allowing Cambodian people to see the end of the ignorance, the disease, the misery and the Vietnamese domination? We reproduce below the article published in Cambodia Daily of July 5th, 2006, showing the Cambodian people opinion for this “Court”:

In the capital, Little Enthusiasm Found For Tribunal
By Thet Sambath and Erik Wasson.
A day after the Khmer Rouge tribunal judges and prosecutors swore their oath of office at the Royal Palace, reaction to the historic event appeared muted in Phnom Penh, and several residents questioned whether the tribunal would accomplish its mission of bringing justice for those killed from 1975 to 1979.
Mok Say Vibol, 48, a bookseller who lost 10 family members, said people were generally apathetic toward the process, as the promised trial was only intended for several top leaders.
“I am not satisfied with a trial of senior leaders,” Mok Say Vibol said at his stall behind the Royal Palace.
“I lived through the regime and I know vicious the cooperative chiefs were. We dared not laugh in front of them they were so brutal to us. Trying just a few people is useless,” he said. “If the trial were fair, then government officials who followed Pol Pot would be involved too.”
Kong Tary, 51 a policeman who said his father was tortured to death by the Khmer Rouge, said that too much time had elapsed to be enthusiastic about a trial now.
“We used to want justice for the Khmer Rouge because they killed the people but it is too long to remember what happened,” Kong Tary said.
“Now we just have 50- percent expectation for the trial,” he said.
Though the international judges ad prosecutors have arrived and both the court’s Cambodian and international appointees have been sworn in, 40-year-old Ouk Pov said he was still skeptical that the trials would actually take place.
“They always delay and postpone. Even if the foreigners are already here, they find a way to delay,” he said.
Others said that thinking about the Democratic Kampuchea period was still too traumatic, and Kol Pich, 65, a parking attendant originally from Battambang province, said he wanted to know as little as possible about the tribunal.
“I know nothing about the trial,” Kol Pich said. “Not thinking about it make me feel peaceful ; when I am reminded about the past it makes me angry,” he said.
“If they had the trial right after the Khmer Rouge regime, the people would have satisfied, but by now it has been too long,” he said. “The leaders are sick and old. Why do they waste money to try them ?”
Sao Sey, 48, a sugar cane seller from Svay Rieng province, agreed “Life was hard under them but it was a long time ago,” she said. If they put those leaders in jail, so what? The people get nothing from that.”
At Phnom Penh’s O’Russei Market, flower seller Chhim Mary, 51, whose parents died during Democratic Kampuchea, said that she was happy that the tribunal was starting, but worried that if the trials don’t happen soon they may not happen at all.
“I just don’t believe that they can try them Ta Mok is sick, the others are very old,” she said.
“Please have the trial soon because [the leaders] have nearly all died,” said cyclo driver Sok Un, 71.
Duch Silong, a Pailin resident who was a Khmer Rouge soldier in Battambang during the regime, said there was nothing to benefit from digging up the country’s brutal past.
“I don’t want to have a trial because it will remind people and make everyone suffer and want to have revenge against each other again,” he said. “They should try and forget the past and live in society together.”
(Additional reporting by Prak Chan Thul)

We wish that Cambodia Daily spreads its inquiry with the rag-pickers living with their family (woman and children) on heaps of garbage trying to find the saleable rests with permanently pestilential smells, and prostituted[1] men and women, With Cambodians who beg in Saigon, Cambodians who are forced to work in Thailand etc. who have relatives also victims of the Khmer Rouge.

Indeed, why put aside families victims of the US bombardments? The victims families of the K5 Plan to build the « Bamboo Wall »? The families of the victims of the multiple massacres among which those of December 1991, of March 30th 1997, of July 1997, of September 1998? Without mentioning the families of Thun Bunly, Piseth Pilika, Om Radsady, Touch Sunnich, the venerable Sam Bounthoeun, Chea Vichea and of so many the others?

In his message dated July 6th, 2006 the King Father has mentioned the main reason of this people indifference :
« (…) our Ordinary People, i.e. the very large majority of Khmer men and women [living] inside this 2nd Kingdom of Cambodia, remains in extreme poverty, often lacks rice and other food staples, and, last but not least, is in increasing number, chased and deprived of their lands. And this “2nd Kingdom” Cambodia itself is officially classified among the poorest and the most backward countries in the world, and this, in spite of the numerous and incredible “homes” of the Super Rich, in spite of their ultra sumptuous villas, their highly luxurious cars, their enormous bank accounts, jewelries and other treasures worthy of Super Maharaja before the Independence and the Democratization of India… (…)
“ But this million of our Ordinary people, “the young generation” in this beginning of the 21st Century, are the authentic offspring (sons, daughters, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandsons, granddaughters, great- grandsons, great-granddaughters) of the authentic victims of Polpotisme.” (…)

Let us remind that the Nazi regime killed officially 6 million Jews during the last World War. From the end of this war, the victim’s families, Jews or not, were able to get back their real estates and furnitures. Those whose these possessions were destroyed are indemnified. The orphans are well welcomed and schooled with helps and supports of the community and the Government. That makes quickly the wounds of the war well treated with repairs and / or compensations. Nowadays the Jews are so well integrated into the social, cultural and economic life of the country where they are living. There is no single illiterate or labor Jew in factories!

More all the Nazi concentration camps were carefully maintained. In these camps reigned an atmosphere of respect to the deaths. There are no bones or skulls of the torture victims exposing like those in Cambodia. To honor these deaths, numerous monuments in certain capitals of Europe were built. In Berlin for example the monument to the memory of the Jews died in camps, covers more than hectare, situated in the heart of the city, built at the German government expense.

Is it the case of Cambodia? 27 years after the end of the Khmer rouge regime? Rainsy raised that every year, 200 000 Cambodian continue to die from ignorance, diseases, AIDS and misery. In Cambodia the infant mortality is one of the higher, otherwise the most higher of the world.

Bones and skulls of the torture victims were expose publicly and in certain places these bones remained in the mud as those of animals without maintenance. When a monument to their memory shall be build then the families of the deaths can come to collect themselves ? Why this contempt of the international community for the Cambodian people? Is it necessary to have some more million of deaths? Does not the respect for the deaths is part of the human culture since more than one hundred thousand years? Then, does the great powers responsible are human beings ? Them who claim to respect the Human Rights ? Is not the most elementary right of the people is first of all the respect for the death of his/her fellow men? Why Pol Pot and Ta Mok are entitled to normal burial? But not for their victims? Why two weights and two measures?

Once again the King Father is right in his message of July 15th, 2006 entitled : “ The lost soul of the Victims of the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge”
(…)
“ The lost souls of the victims of the Pol Pot K.R. monsters (including innumerable Sihanoukistes: Ordinary Khmer People, Members of my family and that of my Wife, Members of the FUNK and GRUNC) will find true Peace, Calm, only when the totality of their bones (skulls, skeletons) is cremated according to Buddhist rites (with benediction in the form of prayers and pouring of perfume-scented water, etc…, and finally preservation [of the ashes] in stupas.)
These Buddhist rites absolutely conform to the non-uprootable beliefs and the mandatory practices of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors, and thus since centuries ago.
That is why, in the first years of the 90s, I had solemnly requested that these rites be performed (at my cost, including the cost for the construction of the stupas) in order to allow these lost souls to escape from their unspeakable torment, and attain the “Sokkatekphoup”, Peace, and total Calm.” (…)

Why does the international community continue to ignore and violate the Cambodian deaths and by there even to the Cambodian people themselves in general, including Cambodians living abroad ? Are there not enough Cambodian deaths since 1970 until nowadays? Why this exception only for Cambodian in this essential duty to the deaths? Why between the Jews and the Cambodians, there are, for the international community, two weights and two measures, two manners, so striking of injustice, to behave on two similar problems?

Plundering our natural resources : precious stones, forests, fishes and soon petroleum and natural gas, etc. still is not sufficient ? Why to accept the voluntary stupidity of the Cambodian people by an absurd policy of the education concerning the professor's salary and the compulsory school program? Why does the international community close eyes when the Vietnamese practice a racist policy against our brothers of the Kampuchea Krom? Are not the Vietnamese making everything destroying their ancestral culture by the elimination of the Cambodian language? Why close eyes when millions of Vietnamese come to settle as master in our home ? And qualifying as "racist" any slight desire to oppose to this invasion? Why favoring this invasion by building a real highway between Phnom Penh and Saigon? The first one in Cambodia as in Vietnam? By resorting exclusively the Vietnamese enterprises? While the communications inside Cambodia always remain untidy? Why the road between Sisophon and the city of Siem Reap remains always impracticable? Why the road Phnom Penh-Preah Vihear started by Chea Sophara remains in suspens ?

After the recent Ta Mok death, we reproduce below the message of King Father of July 22nd, 2005, entitled : An honorable and … sensational testimonial
In the evening of Friday 21 to Saturday, July 22, 2006, at 0:20 AM, TV5 let the young and very credible Mr. CARETTE speaks freely, he who just came to visit Cambodia for seriously investigating the Affair of the (very costly) Khmer-Foreign Tribunal in charge of trying some Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against Humanity.
Mr. CARETTE, while noting the death of the extremely-cruel and extremely-criminal Ta Mok, concluded that the famous TRIBUNAL will finally have to judge only one single individual, “Commander” Duch … (if, 4 years from now, this Duch is still alive).
Spending US $56 million to try one man, even though extremely criminal, will inevitably be judged with great severity by History itself.
Mr. CARETTE, very clearly, testified that in Cambodia, the Khmer people only think about assuring themselves a decent living and that only the Khmer Diaspora (sic!) in some foreign Countries are demanding for this Tribunal and this trial.
Other comments adding to Mr. CARETTE’s testimonial are superfluous.
(Signed): Norodom Sihanouk

Of course 56 millions US dollars are widely insufficient to help Cambodia to develop like her eastern and western neighbours. But the more than two billion petrodollars US$ of annuities are not more than sufficient ? What major powers and powerful oil companies are going to make so that Cambodia does not become another Angola ? With as future the vietnamisation of our country following the example of our Kampuchea Krom? Who are going to pocket these more than two billion petrodollars per year ? The vietnamese Sokimex company does not already have its part? That of the lion one? And who else ? Why always this thick opaqueness concerning the terms of the contract between Hun Sen and the oil companies ? Who can certify us, in a credible way, the true reserves of our wealth in petroleum and in natural gas? Who can guarantee, in a credible way, the real quantity of our “proved” reserve and the real annual income in hydrocarbons? It is necessary to underline that this more than two billions of US$ annual do concern only the reserves already confirmed by the oil companies.

The Cambodians did not wait for the institution of this "Court", already disqualify, moribund and hardly born dying, to be united in the multiform fights, with their small means, against the ignorance, the disease and the misery, against the exaggerated monopoly of the vietnamese company Sokimex and its Canadia bank, for the national independence in the territorial and maritime integrity, for the democracy and the freedom. We accentuated important successes on the cultural, linguistic, economic and social plans, in our previous articles.

In Cambodia the proverb « Help yourself, then God will help you » always remains in the current life. The respect itself gains by the struggle. The history shows that the National Independence, the Territorial and Maritime Integrity, the Democracy, the Freedom and the Peace, the Economic development for the Whole People, are always acquired by the struggle of the people[2].

Note : Cet article est aussi disponible en français sur demande.

[1] Nantarayao Samputho describes these pariah Cambodian in his book "Lethik Prachea Thiptey" and translated by himself into French « Cambodia in voice off », edition Funan, Phnom Penh 2004.
[2] After the World War II, the United States made everything to develop quickly the reconstruction and the economy of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to form a block opposing to China. Now Washington and Tokyo are not they completing this China encirclement by helping Vietnam? Is this strategy begun by Japan since 1972 and followed nowadays by the United States has no consequence for our country? Especially with our plentiful reserve in hydrocarbons? Are the Cambodians going to undergo passively “the oil curse” ? As so many others countries ?