By Prof. Naranhkiri Tith, SAIS, The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C.

November 28, 2000

As the continuation of my efforts to defend the real interests of a free and democratic Cambodia, and at the invitation by an old friend of mine, Mr. Richard Melville, a member of the board of trustees of Bates College to participate in a seminar on Cambodia. Mr. Melville who had lived in Cambodia and continued to be very much interested in Cambodia has donated a collection of rubbings and others mementos of Angkor to the art museum at Bates which he helped to raise money for its building. The exhibition on Angkor was entitled ³Cambodia at Bates² was organized by the students under the supervision of Professor Trian Nugyen, professor of arts and religions in Asia, at Bates.

I was one of the two main speakers for that evening. The other main speaker was Mr. David Chandler, a former professor of Asian history at Monash University in Australia. David has written a number of books about Cambodia, and for that he is considered as one of the most knowledgeable person on Cambodia. Most Cambodians know of Mr. Chandler. But, what they may not know is the fact that he is a left-leaning ideologue who was one of the early defenders of Pot Pot revolution. When Vietnam turned against Pol Pot, Chandler, like other pro-Vietnamese academics, turned allegiance against Pol Pot to support Hun Sen. He is now looking for a teaching job here in the USA after returning from a long stay in Australia two years ago, but was not very successful. As a matter of fact, his one-year contract with SAIS, the Johns Hopkins University where I am teaching now, was terminated for lack of teaching skills and as a result of the students¹ protest. Maybe for that reason, he is now working for the Cambodian Government as a part time  senior adviser to the Khmer studies Center, in Siemreap.

As I expected, during the whole program Chandler was acting as the unofficial spokesperson for the CPP, and essentially was sending the message that the present government in Phnom Penh led by Hun Sen is doing far better than what is being reported by the international press. Indirectly, he was insinuating that those who have lost touch with the reality in present day Cambodia, like myself (because I have not been there since 1994) are no longer capable of speaking objectively about current affairs of Cambodia. He also cleverly made the point that the Vietnamese Government is no longer interested in controlling Cambodia, as Vietnam has too many problems of its own to afford the luxury of interfering in the internal affairs of Cambodia. He dismissed those Cambodians who still believe that Vietnam continues to interfere in Cambodian affairs as sheer paranoia. He said that Cambodians should be thankful to the Vietnamese, as Sihanouk does, for liberating them from the Pol Pot regime. By the way, Chandler used to be one of the harshest critics of Sihanouk that he often elaborated in his books. One may ask why all the sudden this change of heart about Sihanouk? The answer resides in the fact that Sihanouk (and his son Ranariddh) is now under the Hun Sen grip. He also suggested that Vietnam never had any territorial ambition over Cambodia, showing his bias against historical records. Although he recognized that there is an influx of illegal immigrants from Vietnam into Cambodia, but he suggested that this was not a deliberate policy by the Vietnamese Government to encourage its people to move into Cambodia. It was more due to the appeal for Vietnamese to find jobs (contraction workers) more readily available in Cambodia compared to Vietnam.

I am wondering out loud that for Mr. Chandler to come up with this kind of deliberate misinformation campaign and to ignore such well-known historical facts such as the policy of Imperial Vietnam known as ³Nam Thien² or ³Southward March to completely destroy the former Kingdom of Champa, (Annam) and to annexing the Southern part of Cambodia (former French Cochinchina), especially for an Asian history professor, led me to believe that he is either profoundly dishonest or suffered from a profound amnesia.

I am glad I was there to rebut Chandler¹s definite and consistently dishonest and biased depiction of current and past political, socio-economic, and historical developments in Cambodia.

What follows is my rebuttal to Chandler¹s devious presentation.

(1) On the issue of Chandler¹ s claim that Cambodia is now at peace and is making great progress, I simply used the recently published report by the International Crisis Group (of which am a member) entitled ³Cambodia: The Elusive Peace Dividend²  - which I have already sent to you for reference. ­ As my basis to cut to pieces his argument on this issue. Fortunately, The ICG report pointed out very clearly that Cambodia still a lawless and where abuse of power and human rights is Rampant and unchecked. It also mentioned that the culture of impunity still prevails and pervasive. It also describes how the CPP continues to ignore the constitution rights of the Cambodian people, and that he continues to use the army and the police to oppress those who dare to oppose his dictatorship. I went on to describe how the destruction of the environment together with pervasive corruption resulted in increasing misery and poverty for the majority of the Cambodian people. This fact was widely reported by many United Nations specialized agencies, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the IMF, and Global Witness (a British NGO specializing in deforestation).

(2) On the issue of the claim by Chandler that there is no known deliberate policy by Vietnam to conquer Cambodia, I simply made three points.

The first one was a statement that I got from Colonel Bui Tien a former editor of the Nhan Dan (he defected to the west in the early 1990s) who led the first assault tank into Cambodia in 1978. To my question what in his opinion was the main reason behind the Vietnamese thrust into Cambodia in December 25, 1978. I went on to ask him how would he characterize that military incursion into Cambodia. Was an invasion or liberation?

His answer was that he first thought that it was the right thing to do in order to get rid of  Pol Pot and to defend Vietnam population against the Khmer Rouge attack. By doing so Vietnam can claim in the eye of the international community that Vietnam has liberated the Cambodian people form the Khmer Rouge tyranny. But, he said that he started to realize that the real intention of the communist leaders of Vietnam was very different than his. He said that he was severely reprimanded after having written a letter to senior civilian and military officials in Vietnam that Vietnam should take over full responsibility to the United Nations to pacifying and to reorganize the Cambodian society and Economy. He concluded that it started first to be liberation, but it turned out to be an invasion. 

The second point made was the fact that right after the invasion, Vietnam declared to the world that the present friendship and unity between the three sister nations of former French sanctified by a treaty between was to be ³irreversible², meaning under the control of big brother Vietnam. I also added that from my knowledge as student of the world history and especially that of communism, the words such as ³liberation² and ³friendship² has a totally specific connotation and meaning. For instance, when the former Soviet Union claimed to have liberated Eastern European countries. If those Eastern European countries were really liberated as the then Soviet Union has claimed, why then these countries are no longer within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union? As to the claim of ever lasting ³friendship² between nations of the former proclaimed right after the ³liberation² following the end of World War II is did not survive the test of time and real world thinking.

The third point I made in this context, is the fact that Vietnam is still very much a communist country in form and thinking, thus continues to repress its own people. How then can Vietnam claim to be so generous as to liberate Cambodia, foreign country while still repressing its own people? Why did Vietnam choose to place its surrogates such as Hun Sen and the CPP the head of the Cambodia? A recent event which shows that Vietnam is still very much in control of Cambodia is the fact that Hun Sen went on ²vacation² in Vietnam just a few days before the1997 bloody coup against Ranariddh. As documented by the Free Vietnam Alliance (FVA) and by my own memo to Ambassador Abramovitz - then vice chairman of the ICG - (see WCCPD web site for more details on these two documents), Hun Sen went to Vietnam to meet with senior military and civilian officials to ask for Vietnam military intervention should the coup fail.

The next day delivered another lecture the cultural aspects of Cambodia using an excellent CD entitled ²Angkor: Ten Centuries of Splendors² produce² Produced by a group of French scientists and archeologists. The audience was very interested and responsive in both sessions.

I hope that this report will be of some use to those of you who decide to take a more open and high ground to defend the noble and highest interests. It takes a lot of preparation, commitment, awareness, and up keeping with current and past events to be able to face the many real and powerful supporters of Hun Sen and Sihanouk. Any comments would be most welcome.

Regards.  

Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D.

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Letter of Appreciation from Bates College