"...The U.N. representative for human rights in Cambodia expressed concern today over the disappearances of people believed arrested as well as the discoveries of unidentified bodies in and around the capital."Thomas Hammarberg called on the government to publicly acknowledge all instances of arrests and detention during the recent protests, list prisoners' names and whereabouts and clarify the charges against them.
" 'During the past week at least two people have been killed in demonstrations, while the bodies of 16 others have been found floating in rivers, in irrigation ditches, and in shallow graves around the capital,' said a written statement from Hammarberg.
"He said many of the bodies had signs of torture or other violence, including bullet wounds and strangulation marks." --- Associated Press, 16 August, 1998
| Event #135: "Broken Spirit..." or Impeachment Now?
PREMIERE! The Pick of the Litter: Vote for the G21 feature you'd like to see get a Special Edition in October.  DAY ONE: TODAY: ROD AMIS looks back 25 Years contemplating The Road Home.
 LONDON CALLING!: FLISS USSHER wonders about the United Kingdom's new "Doe-eyed Boys." You should, too.
 G21 ASIA: Continuing coverage of the post-election crisis in Cambodia.
 FAX NIKITA: The latest of YOUR SUBMISSIONS of Strange but True facts.
YOUR HOUSE OF CARDS features a new Joke of the Day!  PLANETARY MADNESS: JENNIFER BLUE has your weekly horoscope on deck.
DON'T READ ME FIRST! Our Publisher talks candidly about the end of our moratorium on the White House scandal, and his own feelings about some of the issues involved. PLUS: A midweek update!  BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH takes the gloves off about the Office of the Independent Counsel in "Sex as A Weapon."
 POWERSBOOKS: BOB POWERS gives preliminary kudos to WALLY LAMB's "I know This Much Is True" and waxes rhapsodic about "Mountain People in a Flatland" by CARL E. FEATHER.
 ON DRUGS: ADAM SMITH believes the state of education today is sending young people "From Ignorance to Tyranny."
 CultureCast: JENNIFER BLUE continues her project of cultural deconstruction in "Passages."
LAST WEEK's EDITION For rapid response, use The Message Board |
In Part Two, our interview with Lar Mundstock of the National Development Party, we attempted to bring the story into the present, even as millions of Cambodians went to the polls for the second time in five years, hoping to establish a democratic government.
With Part Three we went out on a limb and challenged the New York Times coverage of this story. Our letter to the Times can be found here.
In a follow-up segment in August, after the "official" announcement of Cambodia's election results had been made, we looked at the aftermath of what increasingly seemed to have been a flawed, if not a completely sham, election and its implications for Cambodia and the region. We concluded that article:
Dictators have staged elections meant to validate their control of national governments for decades. This is nothing new in the world of geopolitics. What G21 believes is new, cynical, and shameful, is that the international community should rush to judgment before ballots are even counted, and then wash its hands, Pilate fashion, on the consequences of its actions. This is a byproduct of the new mercantilism which dominates our "global village," and it should give right-thinking people chills. Not withstanding the cheery pronouncements of former congressman Steve Solarz, we have left a Mirage on the Mekong..
On 8 September, 1998, Cambodia exploded into violent turmoil during protests over the election which --- as we asserted in the face of contradictory reporting from the New York Times, among other sources --- the people of Cambodia found fatally flawed and undemocratic.
Government troops shot into the crowds of thousands of protesters brought out by the opposition parties, even shooting protesting Buddhist priests. Very specifically, Sam Rainsy of the Sam Rainsy Party encouraged Cambodian's to take to the streets against the government of ruling strongman Hun Sen. This course may have backfired on Rainsy, though, as he is now a virtual prisoner in a U.N. office within the Cambodiana Hotel, where he has been holed up since 7 September. Rainsy, a former government minister, fled to the hotel after two weeks of a sit down protest in Phnom Penh led Hun Sen's government to begin attacking protesters and announce that it would have Rainsy arrested.
Here in the United States, on 11 September, Congressman Dana Rohrbacher introduced legislation in the House of Representatives condemning Hun Sen as a war criminal. The Congressman's statement reads, in part:
"Hun Sen is fooling no one. The election was stolen. He now hopes to intimidate freedom loving Cambodians. The attacks on Buddhist monks and peaceful demonstrators serves only to confirm that he is a dictator and enemy of anyone who loves freedom..."In the same statement, the Rohrbacher went on to warn that the international community should not allow Hun Sen to become "Cambodia's new Pol Pot."
Since that time, violence on the streets of the Cambodian capital has run unabated as behind the scenes political jockeying has ocurred.
G21 has learned that Hun Sen's party began as early as two weeks ago at the height of the violence, to offer large sums of money to members of opposition parties, but especially Prince Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC delgates, if they chose to break with the proposed boycott of the Cambodian Parliament(slated to meet on 24 September) so that he could form a government.
Clearly, Hun Sen's strategy has emerged has dividing Ranariddh and Rainsy so that he can conquer the mass opposition to his election. In fact, this past weekend, for the first time, Hun Sen orchestrated pro government demonstrations by trucking a reported 10,000 farmers in from the countryside and ordering them to show support for the election and his government. He signalled his desires through these protestors, who called for the Prince to join a new government, but castigated Sam Rainsy as a traitor to Cambodia.
Meanwhile, the Prince's father, and Cambodia's constitutional monarch, King Norodom Sihanouk has repeatedly called for the opposition to accept a coalition government over the past week. In an address on Sunday the King said, "You may be in great danger and I will not be in a position to protect you." He has further asserted that forming a government with Hun Sen is the only way to avoid further violence and suffering for the common people involved in anti-government protests.
The King's influence seems to have had the desired affect as today, from a meeting with his father in the northwestern province of Siem Reap, Prince Ranariddh announced that his party would not boycott the new parliament's meeting next week, but would indeed participate in the formation of a new government. Thus, Prince Ranariddh has agreed to enter into a partnership again with the man who drove him from Phnom Pennh at gunpoint a year ago last July...
COMMENTARY: Is the tragedy over? Will the violence on the streets of the Cambodian capital stop? With Ranariddh's abandonment of his alliance with Rainsy, and Rainsy's having been forced into fearful hiding and silence, the violence should abate has Hun Sen has won the day. How has he done this? With violence and intimidation, threats of imprisonment, actual killings and torture, and bribery. This does not smell like democracy to the G21, no matter what the United States State Department or Stephen Solarz want to call it. The situation in Cambodia has now deteriorated to the point that only the most cynical among us could call it even a "Mirage on the Mekong." At this stage, the international community, under the leadership of the United States, has allowed Hun Sen to establish a new and undisguised dictatorship in Cambodia.
There is no love lost between Rainsy and Hun Sen. It seems inevitable that Rainsy must now seek either exile or death. As to Ranariddh, history speaks for itself. This most certainly won't be our last feature on troubled Cambodia, a nation in crisis....