Congratulations to Venerable Bun Saluth for winning the UN Equator Initiative for his conservation effort in his native Cambodia!
Kenton Clymer: 60 Years of ‘Troubled’ Relations
Dr. Kenton Clymer giving an overview of the past 60 years of Cambodia-US relations at Chaktomouk Hall, Phnom Penh (Photo: Somongkol Teng)
Dr. Kenton Clymer is Presidential Research Professor in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University.
Cambodia entered Kenton Clymer’s consciousness, as well as that of many Americans of his generation, mainly because of the Vietnam War. But a trip to Cambodia in 1989, when there were no diplomatic relations, drew him to writing about Cambodia. He is author of Troubled Relations: The United States and Cambodia, 1872-2006 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2007).
Why Troubled Relations? Although there are always tensions and challenges in any diplomatic relation, Cambodia’s relations with the US during the Cold War was more troubled than that of many other countries, including complete break-offs, Clymer notes. This ‘troubled’ relationship came to define a major part of the two nations joined history. From an American perspective, Cambodian neutrality led by Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s and 60s was a problem, particularly given that neighboring Thailand and South Vietnam were US allies in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its allies.
Summary of Dr. Clymer’s Overview of US-Cambodia relations until the early 1990s:
Before 1950:
There were very limited connections between Cambodia and the United States. The likely first American to visit the country was Frank Winson Jr. who in 1870 visited the country, including the temples of Angkor. He wrote a book titled The Land of the White Elephant describing his journey.
The only groups of Americans having lived in Cambodia during this time were Christian missionaries. There was a US consulate in Saigon, Cochin-China, with US officials at occasions visiting Cambodia to assess the country’s economic and military potentials.
1950: Establishment of diplomatic relations
Why 1950? Although it wasn’t until three years later that Cambodia gained independence, in 1950 Cambodia became autonomous (50% independence according to Norodom Sihanouk) and the United States was quick to recognize the new state as ‘independent’, along with Vietnam and Laos. The American move was partly driven by the rise in Cold War tensions and its policy to contain the international spread of communism.
King Norodom Sihanouk sent a white elephant as a gift to the United States. Named ‘Harry’ by the crew (reportedly for President Harry S. Truman), the elephant was headed for the National Zoo in Washington, DC, but unfortunately died in South Africa, while on the way from Cambodia via Singapore.
1953: Cambodia gains independence from France, partly with the help of the United States.
Relations were quite friendly for a time. Cambodia was the only neutral country in the world to accept the presence of a US military advisory group.
1954:
The US was impressed by Cambodian negotiators at the Geneva Conference for neutralizing the voice of indigenous communist rebels, and therefore avoiding a territorial/political division that occurred in Vietnam and Laos.
1950s: Later
Cambodia’s establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1958 angered the United States. Cambodian suspicions that the US was behind plots to overthrow the Cambodian government further deteriorated the relations.
In Dr. Clymer’s view, Ambassador William Trimble was likely the most successful ambassador in Cambodia during the 1950s and 60s. He witnessed the opening of the Khmer-American Friendship Highway (aka. National Road 4) and the role of the US in the winning of Preah Vihear dispute with Thailand.
1960s: Early
Relations were good. Kennedy’s administration was more open to Cambodia’s neutrality, and the new engagement with Cambodia was partly drive by US policy interest in Laos. Sihanouk and Kennedy exchanged views on the situation in Laos.
1963:
Relations took a sharp turn and severed dramatically. Cambodia cut off all US aid. After the death of President Kennedy, relations further deteriorated until Sihanouk cut off diplomatic relations in 1965.
The cause of deterioration is the spillover of the Vietnam War into the border areas of Cambodia, prompting occasional incursions into Cambodian territories.
1965-69:
During four years without diplomatic relations, American interests in Cambodia were handled by the Australian embassy.
1969: It is ironic that diplomatic relations were restored during the Nixon’s administration given Sihanouk’s dislike of President Nixon, who was open to both more military bases around Cambodia and extension military operation within Cambodia. However, Nixon accepted Cambodia’s existing boundaries, a long-standing Cambodian demand.
1970s: Early
Following the 1970-coup led by General Lon Nol, US diplomatic relations with the new Khmer Republic were quite good despite continued US bombings in Cambodia.
In Clymer’s view, the greatest tragedy of the period was Henry Kissinger’s unwillingness to speak with Sihanouk. Sihanouk offered to negotiate with the United States and attempted to meet with both Kissinger and Nixon, a move supported by then US Ambassador John Gunther Dean, but US leaders declined on the grounds that they were supporting the Lon Nol regime. Taking Sihanouk more seriously by the United States might have changed the course of Cambodia’s political conflict and possibly delayed or prevented the Khmer Rouge from coming to power.
1975:
Khmer Rouge victory marked the beginning of the second and longer period of broken diplomatic relations (1975-1993) between Cambodia and the United States. There were almost no contacts between Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)and the US. Increased criticisms of the Jimmy Carter administration’s lack of concerns for atrocities under Pol Pot led to Carter to declare the regime “the worst violator of human rights in the world today.”
1980s:
Despite the fact that the 1979 Vietnamese invasion stopped the horrendous genocide by the Khmer Rouge, fearing increased Vietnamese influence in the region, the US did not recognize the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, and instead recognized the Khmer Rouge at the UN. The US foreign policy was driven primarily by geo-political interests and saw the Khmer Rouge regime and later Khmer Rouge rebels as a counter-balance to growing Vietnamese influence.
At the same time, there was fear in the US that support for the Khmer Rouge could aid their return to power.
1990s:
United States became active in the UN peace process in Cambodia, helping to usher political settlement and gradually political stability in the country.
Despite a relative troubled past relations, Dr. Kenton Clymer is pleased US-Cambodian relationships have most recently evolved in a very positive way.
“I look forward to 60 years of uninterrupted diplomatic relations in the future,” he concluded.
Filed under News & More
60th Anniversary Clogging
Live Clogging from Chaktomouk Theather, Phnom Penh, 21 July 2010 (Photo: Sophat Soeung)
A number of Cloggers (Cambodian bloggers), including me, are about to do live blogging from Chaktomouk Theather, Phnom Penh, Cambodia during a two-day 60th Anniversary Cambodia-U.S. Diplomatic Relations Symposium 1950-2010. Please follow us on Cambodia America 60, as well as on our individual blogs.
Filed under News & More
New Year Baby’s Khmer Screening
Socheata Poev speaking at the anniversary screening (Photo: Sophat Soeung)
The award-winning documentary New Year Baby premiered in Khmer as Tearuok Chhnam Thmei (ទារកឆ្នាំថ្មី) in Phnom Penh this evening (19 July 2010) with the presence of its director and lead actor–Socheata Poev (ពៅ សុជាតា). The event, which took place at Chenla Theater amid tight security, was organized by the US Embassy as part of a series of events marking the 60th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and the United States.
Despite some initial technical problems with the microphone and the fact that some expatriates had to leave the theater after learning that the screening will be in Khmer only, the screening itself proceeded smoothly in a not fully packed theater.
Speaking at the Khmer screening, Socheata stresses the importance of knowing one’s history–the country’s and the family’s.
A representative from the US Embassy emphasized the multi-faceted nature of US-Cambodia relations, including the binding of both people and history.
New Year Baby's Khmer screening at Chenla Theater (Photo: Sophat Soeung)
The event concluded with the selling of the DVDs of the film and Socheata giving autographs. Each cost 5 dollars and unlike the film being screened, the DVDs on sale were in English, the original language which came out four years earlier in 2006. According to Socheata, the Khmer version of New Year Baby will be available on Wednesday (21 July 2010). For those of you who want to order it, please visit the film’s website.
For those of you wishing to learn more about the themes behind the story, you can listen or read her views in two of my reports on narrative trauma healing and genocide education.
Socheata taking questions from viewers (Photo: Sophat Soeung)
Like a personal gift from Socheata!
Filed under Cambodia, Khmer Rouge, News & More
Clogging Once More!
After the long lapse, I’m back to blogging–big time. Stay tuned!
Filed under News & More
Cambodia – the place to be!
The 2010 National Geographic Traveler guide for Cambodia
I recently met a young Frenchmen who had been to both Angkor and Phnom Penh so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when I located this book while browsing through the travel section of Borders. From a quick read, it contents did not appear to add substantially much more than previous travel guides, but the underlying theme is one of a very optimistic time for Cambodia–an awakened young nation with growing optimism and assertiveness in its people and where Angkor serves as a symbol of the potential of Khmer civilization. In other words, there has been no better time to visit the Kingdom of Cambodia!
New travel books for Cambodia, including Nat Geo's most recent, at a Borders bookshop in Washington DC (March 2, 2010) show increasing interest in Cambodia by Western tourists
Deconstructing the Current Cambodian-Thai Diplomatic Dispute: A Cambodian Perspective
Tensions between Thailand and Cambodia have now moved beyond Preah Vihear and become increasingly more complicated. Yet, things may as well be straightforward, or so it seems from this very insightful piece by the Asia Times’ Craig Guthrie:
Hun Sen’s main domestic opponent says the premier’s overtures to Thaksin are not motivated by scoring political points or a desire to uphold Khmer nationalism, but instead are due to pressure being exerted on him by Vietnam, the invading nation which initially installed him as premier in 1985 and which the opposition still claims has influence over the CCP government.
Sam Rainsy has called the argument between Thaksin and Abhisit a “political game” to turn the Cambodian public’s attention to the west, in the direction of Thailand, while ignoring the east, towards Vietnam. Antagonism among Cambodians – over inward migration and alleged land grabbing – is much higher towards Vietnam, which occupied Cambodia between 1979 and 1989, than towards Thailand, which has made less controversial service-sector inroads into the country.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Hun Sen is trying to show that he is the defender of the national interests of Cambodia and that Thailand is the real enemy of Cambodia and not Vietnam,” said United States-based Cambodian economist Naranhkiri Tith.
Although the above analysis may not fully explain the current “political game,” it does compellingly show that the current ‘nationalist double standard’ exercised by the CPP government is partly rooted in the Party’s owning its existence to Vietnam’s support as well as its distrust of Thailand during the 1980s and 1990s Cambodian Cold War politics. Nevertheless, it is likely that the motivations behind the current moves are as much the CCP’s different historic relations with the two neighbors as they are a need to uphold Khmer nationalism in the eyes of an increasingly changing domestic demography.
With the memories and legacy of the Khmer Rouge–the demise of which is a major source of the CCP’s political legitimacy–gradually fading away, particularly amongst young and educated Cambodians, Khmer nationalism is increasingly becoming a substitute tool for political and moral legitimacy. Post-Khmer Rouge-born Cambodians may already make up the majority of the voting population and certainly will in the near future. To this audience, the destruction of the Khmer Rouge means little, if anything, compared to job security, better education, better health care, or particularly post-conflict national pride and nation-(re)building.
Khmer nationalism has traditionally included the centuries-old process of ‘othering’–the creation of group enemies–of the neighboring Thais and Vietnamese to produce a sense and defense of ‘Khmer-ness’. With some exceptions, politicized animosities against the two more powerful neighbors have often been an unbalanced either-or affair; that is, either turning more East (against Vietnam) or West (against Thailand) depending on what Cambodian regime is in power and which foreign patron it is ‘indebted’ to. Such animosity is practically non-existent against neighboring Laos, a country similarly squeezed between the two powerful neighbors. In contemporary Cambodian political context, is seems likely that more problems would arise with Thailand than Vietnam if the CCP rules, while the opposite–more antagonistic policies towards Vietnam and warmer relations with Thailand– would ensue should the current opposition party come to power. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s recent political stunt at the Vietnamese border and the consequences thereof highlight what can be expected of Cambodia’s domestic-cum-neighborly politics in the coming years.
As a matter of nationalist politics, the current ruling CCP has few other choices than to exploit its historical distrust of Thailand. Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, it is also trying to counter any perceived double standard in order to be seen as the ‘real guarantor’ of the nation’s independence in the eyes of its people. It comes as no surprise, then, that Cambodia’s information minister recently led a Cambodian delegation to what is known by Khmers as ‘Kampuchea Krom’ or ‘Lower Cambodia’ in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta territory to showcase that the CPP also cares about ethnic Khmers there and can also ‘tackle’ Vietnam, although in a much more amicable way.
What Guthrie describes as “domestic political spat that has spilled over into international relations” and which initially was applied to Thai internal politics in relation to the Preah Vihear dispute and now also suitably applied to Cambodian politics, is potentially very destructive politics that comes at a heavy price for peoples living along the Cambodia-Thailand and Cambodia-Vietnam borders as well as a blow to the ASEAN spirit altogether. Concerned politicians should keep these consequences in mind now that it is their capacity to reconstruct a better politics for their country and the region.
Filed under Cambodia, News & More, Thailand ประเทศไทย, Vietnam Việt Nam
Truly the City by the Bay
Port of San Francisco
San Francisco Waterfront
San Francisco Waterfront with Bay Bridge in the foreground
A vessel in the San Francisco Bay
San Francisco seen from a commuter ferry in the Bay
Ferry terminal on the East Bay
Filed under America
Deacon of Death – Struggle for Local Justice and Reconciliation in Cambodia
Deacon of Death (Khmer: អាចារ្យខ្មោច), a 2004 documentary film by Jan van den Berg and Willem van de Put, was recently aired on Al-Jazeera’s Witness Special. The documentary captures the difficult issue of justice and reconciliation in Cambodia–a predominantly Buddhist country–thirty years on after the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. A Khmer Rouge survivor has come forward to face the past and confronts the alleged perpetrator directly. The narrative focuses on the local-level atrocities that was so pervasive during the time and concludes with a need for local-level reconciliation and a high-level justice. The documentary was partly in preparation for the Khmer Rouge tribunal.
While there is now a tribunal going on at the high-level, the documentary high-lights the importance of a local-level mechanism to justice and reconciliation for former victims, perpetrators, and those who fit into both categories. There seems to be an increasing public and international interest and call for a local mechanism; yet, many disagree as to the nature of such mechanisms. I share the idea of many foreign observers that there should be a state-sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission in additional to the on-going trials; increasingly with the passing time, this becomes ever more urgent. However, not everyone shares this view. One argument against a truth commission I am aware of is that it is culturally inappropriate in a Buddhist country, where justice [trials] is appropriate and reconciliation as understood in the Western/Christian notion is not necessary. Interestingly, a ‘Cambodian reconciliation’ would also primarily mean ‘forgiving and forgetting.’ The cultural argument, to me, lacks force when considering the likely profound cathartic effect of a truth-finding/justice mechanism, whereas forgetting altogether is morally wrong. Without any solid background in Buddhist principles of justice and reconciliation, I cannot exactly say whether there is in fact a cultural argument against reconciliation in the Cambodian context. In any case, the current trials will hopefully bring these deeper questions and debate to light and the Cambodian people as a whole–particularly survivors–should be allowed to voice their idea on what best constitute an appropriate local-level reconciliation mechanism.
The atrocities Sok Chea witnessed as a child during the rule of Pol Pot continue to haunt to this day, nearly thirty years later. So she is shocked when she suddenly comes across the man who was in charge of her prison and whom she holds responsible for murdering most of her family. Once again he holds a prominent position, this time as Deacon of Death or leader of cremation ceremonies. She decides to collect evidence against him. He must stand trial. But can she succeed in a country still ruled by fear. Besides which, Cambodians believe in karma and forgiveness. Wrongdoers are punished after their death anyway and will suffer for many lives to come. Sok Chea’ss quest leads her to a confrontation with Karoby, in the same pagoda where the atrocities occurred.
Watch the documentary here: [Caution: Viewers may find the descriptions too appalling.]
Filed under Cambodia, News & More
Preah Vihear: Peace at Last?
In an as yet not unprecedented move, Cambodian and Thai high-ranking military leaders declared an official end to the standoff at Preah Vihear. Thai General Songkitti Jaggabatra boasts:
“I would like to clarify again that there will be no more problems between Thailand and Cambodia. The border will not be the cause of any further disputes […] Cambodia and Thailand can not live separately. As Asean members, both countries shall not be in any cannot confrontation.” [I don’t know how ‘cannot’ ended up in the Nation‘s translation]
Echoed by Khmer General Pol Saroeun:
“We have the same view. Our goal is to achieve peace and solidarity with each other as siblings.”
This follows reduction of Thai troops and the plan for a similar Cambodian redeployment announced by Cambodian PM Hun Sen, which if implemented would amount to what some describe as effectively a cease-fire. This rosy picture is not shared by all, however, including opposition MP Son Chhay who has little faith in bilateral meetings:
Son Chhay said such disputes were best resolved via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and international law. Solving border conflicts of this scale and intensity, he said, should be left to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
While welcoming the current cooling down of tensions at Preah Vihear, I would echo skeptics’ concerns that such bilateral moves may only buy time before further escalations could arise. I am not aware of any permanent settlement of a border conflicts or territorial claims solely through bilateral negotiations and without a third-party involvement, not even with another ASEAN pair, Malaysia and Singapore over Pedra Branca. And both countries still keep to their different maps. Given Preah Vihear’s history at center of the storm of past and current nationalist fervors, such ideal settlement, however unlikely for now, would be a marked achievement in Khmer-Thai relations and that of two ASEAN neighbors.
Filed under Cambodia, News & More, Thailand ประเทศไทย
Journey of a Dreamer 