23 years and counting: Hun Sen wins another Cambodian election

EU monitors have declined to label last weekend’s Cambodian elections as unfair despite saying they failed to live up to international standards. Martin Callanan, the head of an EU election monitoring team, said Sunday's poll was dominated by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) which was returned to power. He said CPP’s massive resources allowed "accusations of lack of impartiality to be made.” But Callanan pointedly didn’t make those accusations directly and he failed to back up the opposition Sam Rainsy party who alleged widespread vote rigging and who called on the international community to reject the result.

Prime Minister Hun Sen extended his 23 year rule when his CPP won 91 of the 123 seats in the Sunday election. Although final results will not be announced until sometime in August, election officers said the ruling party had taken at least 62 per cent of the vote in five of the nation's 24 provinces. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy rejected this and called for renewed balloting in Phnom Penh, where his party is strongest. He claims 200,000 people in the capital were ineligible to vote after their names were struck off registration lists. "Neither party won more than two-thirds of the seats," he said.

But despite Rainsy’s rhetoric, the CPP victory was not really a surprise. Hun Sen had been widely tipped to win for months and ran a very astute campaign. The country has been greatly normalised since the disastrous wars that devastated the country between the 1970s and 1990s. Cambodia was admitted to ASEAN in 1999. The Cambodian economy has been booming for the last few years and the quality of life is improving in one of the world's poorest nations. Cambodia's GDP grew by an impressive 13.4 percent in 2005, driven by garment exports, tourism, foreign investment, a construction boom, and record crops in agriculture.

In the last month, Sen has also capitalised on the nationalist sentiment sparked by the border feud with Thailand over the Preah Vihear Khmer temple complex. Now that the election is over Hun Sen is sounding more conciliatory but says the impetus to solve the two week dispute lies with Thailand. The foreign ministers of both countries have agreed to consider withdrawing troops from the area. Hun Sen claimed there was no problem on the Cambodian side. “The problem is with the Thai side. We understand their difficulty,” he said. “They need discussion and approval of the cabinet.”

UPI Asia Online believes Hun Sen’s victory should be attributed to the system of government the CPP put in place when it was a fully-fledged communist party in the 1980s. They added a democratic veneer in 1993 when the country theoretically embraced parliamentary democracy, but the CPP remained in firm control. The ruling party has utilized this system to get itself re-elected over and over since its defeat in the UN organised election in 1993.

The CPP controls all the key state apparatuses including the National Election Committee, the judiciary, security forces, civil service and educational institutions. They also maintain a de facto near-authoritarian control over the nation’s media. They run nationwide television and much of radio as well as constraining the non-party owned press. Reporters Without Borders said that in advance of the election there were fears that the ruling party would tighten its grip still further on electronic media with Hun Sen saying that he plans to stay in power for another 20 years.

There is still much work to be done in that time. Ian Lloyd Neubauer says Cambodia remains one of the least-developed countries in the world. Neubauer is a former Cambodian-based journalist and author of the novel “Maquis” whose theme is civil unrest in the country. He says Cambodian democracy exists in name only and the legal system works on a user-pays basis. “Alcoholism, methamphetamine use, prostitution, violence against women, land grabbing, unemployment and malnutrition are endemic,” he says.

Thailand Cambodia border stand-off

High level talks between Thai and Cambodian officials have failed to come to terms on the week-long military stand-off over the disputed Preah Vihear temple on their shared border. While both sides expressed the desire to ease tensions, neither have given ground in talks in the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, 380 km from the 11th century temple at the centre of the dispute. So far there have been no casualties and both sides talked up the peace. Thai Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niumpradit saying Thailand had a “reasonable offer” while Cambodian commander Chea Mon said he didn’t want armed troops disturbing Buddhist monks praying at the temple.

Both countries are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). An ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Singapore originally scheduled to discuss the aftermath of Burma’s cyclone Nargiss was sidetracked by the border spat between Thailand and Cambodia. The two countries agreed to "exert utmost efforts" to find a peaceful solution to their border standoff. Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo says both sides were urged to resolve their differences amicably in the spirit of ASEAN solidarity and good neighbourliness. "Both sides affirmed that they would abide by their ASEAN and international obligations and exert their utmost efforts to find a peaceful solution to the issue," said Yeo in a statement.

However Yeo’s statement appeared optimistic given what was happening on the ground. More than 500 Thai troops face off against well over 1,000 Cambodian soldiers stationed around a small Buddhist pagoda leading to the ruins of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, where nearby land is claimed by both sides. Although traditional Thai land, it was ceded to French Indochina in a 1906 treaty with Thailand. While Japan promised the land back to Thailand during World War Two, Thailand agreed to return it to Cambodia after the war in order to secure UN membership. Cambodian ownership has since been confirmed by an International Court of Justice ruling.

However Matters came to a head when UNESCO listed Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site this month. UNESCO said the site was exceptional for three reasons: firstly its natural situation on a promontory, with sheer cliffs overlooking a vast plain and mountain range; secondly the quality of its architecture adapted to the natural environment and religious function of the temple; and thirdly, the exceptional quality of the carved stone ornamentation of the temple. It cited the fact that both the governments of Cambodia and Thailand were “in full agreement that the Sacred Site of the Temple of Preah Vihear has Outstanding Universal Value.”

However the decision triggered political uproar in Bangkok, where the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) accused the government of selling out Thailand's history by backing the listing. PAD have fastened on to the nationalist strains of this “sell out” to oust Thai PM Samak Sundaravej. The anti-Thaksin Shinawatra party have been conducting street demonstrations against the government since June. Their protests gained new impetus with the UNESCO decision and they claim Sudaravej had gained business concessions in Cambodia in payment for ceding Thai territory.

The Thais call Preah Vihear “Khao Phra Viharn”. The temple was the subject of a prolonged legal tussle between the Thai and Cambodian governments, both of which claimed ownership after centuries of rivalry, invasions and fluctuating borders. In 1961-62, the International Court of Justice got involved and declared that the site belonged to Cambodia. In 1963, Thai Prime Minister Sarit told his country in a televised address that Thailand would comply with the Court ruling and withdraw from Khao Phra Viharn. The site has been under Cambodian administration since then.

But for tourists the site is still easiest reached from Thailand. Telegraph journalist Alex Spillius visited the site in 1998 by Cambodian army helicopter but says he was lucky to survive the experience. For those not inclined to hitch a lift from the military, the journey to Preah Vihear from Cambodia involves a two-day journey from Siem Reap , the town that serves Angkor Wat, “on small roads that, although improved, would still not do your spine any favours.” From Thailand, a visit can be built in to a tour of the north-east, (known as “Isaan”) starting at Nakhon Ratchasima or Ubon Ratchathani airports, both short flights from Bangkok. It is a short walk across a border where passports were not required. However no tourists are welcome to Preah Vihear for the time being.

Brother Number Four escapes justice

Ta Mok died on Friday 21 July. With him dies another chapter in the story of the Khmer Rouge. He was also known as "Brother Number Four" and his birth name was Chhit Choeun. He took the nom de guerre of Ta Mok, which means Grandfather (or Uncle) Mok. He was the military leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

He was born in 1926 and trained as a Buddhist monk at Pali High School in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. He left the order to take up the fight against French occupation. During the war years he was an active opponent of the Japanese occupation.

He joined the Cambodian Communist Party after the war and rose to become a member of its Central Committee. He commanded its forces in the south-west of Cambodia initially fighting the French after the war. King Norodom Sihanouk took over the country when it gained its independence in 1953. He held corrupt elections in 1955 which led many leftists in Cambodia to abandon any hope of taking power by legal means. The communist movement, while ideologically committed to armed struggle in these circumstances, did not launch a rebellion because of the weakness of the party.

While the Vietnam War raged, Sihanouk promoted policies he claimed would preserve Cambodia's neutrality. Pol Pot went to Vietnam to unsuccessfully drum up support for a communist rebellion. He returned in 1967 and decided to launch a national uprising in Cambodia without Vietnam’s support. But with a force of only 1,500 men they could only launch guerrilla offensives.

By 1970 Ta Mok was Khmer Rouge chief of staff and he lost a leg in combat in one of the many border skirmishes with Sihanouk’s forces. During this era the Viet Cong was using Cambodia as a base and the US retaliated by launching its secret bombing campaign and invasion against Cambodia.

Cambodia descended into full-scale civil war in the mid 1970s, and the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot took control in 1975. They renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. They launched an ideologically-driven campaign against so-called "parasites" - intellectuals, city-dwellers and disabled people among them – and massacred up to 2 million people in the so-called Killing Fields. The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. In December 1978, after several years of border conflict and a flood of refugees into Vietnam, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979 and deposing the Khmer Rouge regime.

The Khmer Rouge fled to the west and continued to control an area near the Thai border for the next decade, unofficially protected by elements of the Thai Army and funded by smuggled diamonds and timber. In 1997, following a split within the movement, Ta Mok rose against Pol Pot, who was condemned to house arrest for life. In April 1998, following a new government attack, Ta Mok fled into the forest taking Pol Pot with him. Pot died in Ma Tok’s custody a short while later. In 1978 the Vietnamese army invaded and overran the Khmer Rouge who fled into the countryside.

Ta Mok - the last major Khmer Rouge figure still at large - was finally arrested, inside Thai territory, on 6 March 1999. He was taken to Phnom Penh, and accused of membership of the now-banned Khmer Rouge. The charges were then escalated to genocide and crimes against humanity. He was due to face trial in 2007 with the other key leaders. He leaves behind the living Brothers Number Two and Three, Noun Chea (the ex prime minister) and Ieng Sary (the deputy prime minister) to face the music at the Khmer Rouge trials.