Questions require Answers

News of Cambodia N 0816-F

INFORMATION AND QUESTIONS REQUIRE ANSWERS

Khemara Jati
Montreal, Quebec
February 28th, 2008

I/. Information.

How Hanoi vietnameses Laos

In Laos, since already three years, the children have to learn the vietnamese language as second language at the elementary schools. Then the education of the vietnamese will be strengthened in the secondary classes. Finally the vietnamese language will become the vehicle language in universities in Laos like in Vietnam. Then the responsible and the Laotian intellectuals until the lowest level will use the vietnamese language to communicate among themselves verbally as well as in writing. Finally the Laotian language will not be more spoken than by the people and will eventually disappear for lack of written support as what was supposed to be for the language of Cham.

In Thailand, the language of our sisters and brothers would be eventually extinguished if there is no education at least primary and secondary into Cambodian as in Cambodia. It is the same case for our sisters and brothers of the Kampuchea Krom. Cambodia is the only place where we have the possibility, even reduced, to develop our language and also to rewrite our history which gathers us and makes us proud of our ancestors and also our elder brothers.

No any major power should rather develop our language and rewrite our history with the aim of uniting us to defend our nation against the encroachments of our neighbors. And also to help our sisters, brothers and fellow countrymen in Thailand and in Kampuchea Krom to protect and preserve their ancestral culture. Because the material and religious culture without the support of the paper (writing) is a culture in process of disappearance. It is what the colonial regime began to proceed it in Kampuchea Krom. Louis Malleret very well described it in 1946. It is what Hanoi is doing it in Laos. It is what Huê made it for Champa. Our sisters and brothers of Thailand and Kampuchea Krom know it by experience and make us understand about it.

In sub-Saharan of Africa, the education uses foreign languages since primary classes even in South Africa and in Namibia. In these last two countries, the industrialization development and the whole fortunes remain always in the hands of the Whites, with only some rare Blacks. Major power help to fight against the diseases as the AIDS and the Malaria, and against the famine by supplying foodstuffs, but the great majority of the Africans always continue to live in the darkness of ignorance, the disease, the misery and often in fratricide wars. Nevertheless Africa conceals immense wealth in any kind: petroleum, natural gas, uranium, gold, platinum, diamond, copper etc. which make the wealth of the developed countries and the big multinational companies. On the other hand Africa possesses men of very great values as General Secretaries of the UN, Unesco, members of the French Academy, the engineers who make robots sent on the March planet etc. The father of the Senator Barack Obama, is a Nigerian recently emigrated in the United States. At the moment Kenya is living in bloody conflicts. Barack Obama fights to become the democratic candidate in the Presidency of the United States. If his father did not emigrate in the United States, Obama would be among those who killed each other in Kenya. So Africa can produce remarkable personalities, but regrettably too small number impossible to find some high-level work in their native country. This is because the African universities use European languages. The best elements do not find any work in their knowledge in foreign languages and do not find any work corresponding to their levels. They are thus obliged to emigrate towards the developed countries. They are very welcome with open arms. The most intelligent and the brightest African whether he is can never become Einstein in his country.

Is not Cambodia, with the university education in foreign languages, becoming an underdeveloped country as African countries? With a future its absorption by Vietnam in the Eastern and by Thailand on the Western? Already, our natural resources are not already served for enriching mainly countries and foreign citizens, in particular Vietnam and Thailand? More there is a human invasion from Vietnam. One day the Eastern part of Cambodia will not become a Vietnamese province actually?

II/. Questions require answers

A/. About Preah Vihear.

Preah Vihear is recognized by the International Court of the Hague as belonging to Cambodia. Fighting so that Thailand respects this decision is very well. All the Cambodians agree with that. But:

1/. Why still there is no tourist exploitation of Preah Vihear of the Cambodian side?

2/. Why still there are no any roads in good condition for easy access to Preah Vihear from Phnom Penh ? Nor the other good road from Angkor to Preah Vihear?

3/. Why abandoning exclusively to only Thai the monopoly of exploiting the tourist wealth of this prestigious monument builds unquestionably possible by our ancestors?

4/. Why the road from Sisophon to Siem Reap city remains always in very bad condition?

5/. What is the important to build the railway from Poipet to Sisophon and the construction of the road from Poipet to Anlong Veng?

6/. Why the roads towards our borders are generally still in very bad condition? Is it enough to defending the land and maritime integrity of our country by only the diplomacy field?

B/. About the renovation of our railroad line Battambang - Phnom Penh - Sihanoukville.

This railroad line is supposed to be a part of the line which will join Singapore to Kumming in China:

1/. Why there is still no map showing where represent the project of this railroad line?

2/. What represents, in this project, the railway Poipet-Sisophon?

3/. Is the gauge the same everywhere since Kumming to Singapore?

4/. The gauge of the railway renewed in Cambodia, does it answer this standard?

5/. Why, once renewed, our railway can run only at most 50 km per hour? In this XXIth century? Is it the maximal speed from China to Singapore will also be 50 km / hour?

6/. The name of the company mandated to renew our railroad line is mentioned. But where the material like rails, cars and locomotives come from? Is it new material or it is the old one abandoning somewhere else, not to say the scrap in an Asean country? And sold out at a high price to Cambodia? Would it explain the maximal speed of 50 km / hour of this new train?

C/. Problem of the energy

We know now that we are soon going to have important incomes with the exploitation of our petroleum and our natural gas.

1/. Before 1970, there was an oil refinery in Cambodia for imported petroleum treatment. Now that we have some petroleum, why still there is no project of an oil refinery construction? Why not to take advantage of it for not to be dependent of the gazoline from Vietnam imported through the monopoly of the Vietnamese company Sokimex and sold out of 50 % more expensive than in Vietnam? Why allowing Vietnam to make enormous profits on the back of our people?

2/. Why still there are no projects of power plants constructions using our gas and/or our petroleum?

3/. Why allowing Thailand to come and build on our land a very big power plant fed with the coal which is so polluting. Why the construction of this kind of power plant is forbidden in Thailand but allow officially in Cambodia?

4/. Why the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank help us to build high-tension lines to feed our eastern provinces the electricity from Vietnam and our western provinces with the thai electricity? Why oblige us to abdicate our independence in electrical energy while we have the possibility of doing without it?

5/. Why allowing Vietnam to come and build on our land two hydroelectric dams and then selling the electricity to Cambodia at the price fixed by Hanoi?

6/. Cambodia can be independent in energy in any kind, in particular in electrical way. Why obliging our country to remain eternally dependent on our neighbors in energy and in particular in electrical energy? Can Cambodia be independent in the decisions by being dependent on our two neighbors in energy, more particularly in oil and electrical energy?

D/. About our tourist industry

The complex of monuments built by our ancestors is known now all over the world and appreciated by its magnificence, its originality and its artistic beauty. The Angkor region is the biggest historic concentration of monuments in Asia and in the world as well. Certainly monuments in India and in China are very important and interesting in all the points of view. But they are scattered in immense countries. The growing influx of the tourists makes our pride and contributes to a certain extent for us to unite each other.

1/. Why the two million guests a year, who spend more than two billions of US dollars a year leave the inhabitants of the province of Siemreap still in the ignorance, the disease and the misery? Certain organizations say that only less than 10 % of these two billions of US go into the pockets of the only inhabitants of the city of Siem Reap. Most than 90 % fills the pockets of the foreigners of which the Vietnamese Sokimex company. Why?

2/. Why there is no another Cambodian airline company takes advantage of this extraordinary tourist development?

3/. The city of Siem Reap develops in a vertiginous speed, as well as in Phnom Penh and at Sihanoukville. What is the percentage of the Cambodian companies participates in these constructions? What is the percentage of the architects, the engineers and the Cambodian technicians in any kind? What nationalities are the architects, the engineers and the foreign technicians who participate in these constructions?

4/. There are now numerous archaeological excavations in Cambodia. Is there participation and training of a big number of Cambodian archaeologists? Why in Cambodia, the archaeological excavations always remain monopolized by foreigners? The confrontation of the results of the archaeology excavations and the papers is extremely important for our history. It began only since the 1960s with Bernard Philippe Groslier. The results of B. P. Groslier researches are highly appreciated by George Coedes and Paul Mus. Now the new excavations results come to confirm the theses made by B. P. Groslier. Although these results come to clarify and to refine these theses. Are there Cambodian historians able and capable of making the synthesis of our history or we leave always the foreigners to monopoly of writing it?

E/. Problem of the education

1/. In when a project to develop the education into Cambodian language in all the universities?

2/. Why the rate of illiteracy elimination in Cambodia does exceed only hardly not even 50 %? While in Thailand and while in Vietnam this rate exceeds the 90 %? Does not the future of a country depend on the number of the high-level intellectuals who work in factories and research laboratories in own country?

3/. Vietnam says that it is going to build schools in our provinces of the Northeast. What language will be taught in these schools? Or like in nearby Laos? The Cambodian with the Vietnamese?

4/. The Vietnamese Hoc Lundy built a university at Svay Rieng city. This university uses what language?

F/. Problem of the media

1/. We have the foreigner witnesses concerning the very bad condition of the road from Sisophon to Siem Reap city. It took them more than four hours for 100 km and they qualify this road as « dancing road ». Why does this road always stay in very bad condition? Is it the ransom of the dependence of the city of Siem Reap from thai electricity?

2/. Why still there is no any report on the road of Kompong Thom city to Preah Vihear? Why does this road always remains in very bad condition? Is it also another ransom of the dependence of the city of Siem Reap from thai electricity?

3/. Why, still there are no reports on our cities and villages about our eastern borders and the roads leading to over there? Is it also another ransom of the dependence of the Eastern part of our country from Vietnamese electricity?

III /. Conclusion

Defending the independence and the territorial and maritime integrity only by the political and the diplomatic fields is it sufficient? Why neglecting the development of the education, the economy and the infrastructure purposes, first of all the communications by ways of the ground, water and maritime? All the responsible for the developed countries of the world know that the future is based on the number and the quality of the high-level intellectuals and the laboratory researches which are on the base of any development and economic independence.

Is it the influence of the Cambodia histories written by foreigners? Indeed with the only exception of Bernard Philippe Groslier, all these foreign historians write our history only on the “political” history only. They put aside the economic problems and the relations of Cambodia with the outside world, in particular from the Portuguese arrival in Malacca in 1511 following by the other Europeans in this area.

We shall detail more on the fundamental points of the Cambodia history another time, now confirmed partially by new archaeological excavations at Angkor Borey, Angkor and even in Sisophon region.

In sum, the language and the history are both the fundamental bases of our national union. No any major power should rather help us to develop them.

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