Ref.:    Luncheon with Bang Kiri on December 8, 2001

Bang Sambath, Bang Sichantha and I went to Washington, DC to thank Bang Kiri for his leadership, guidance and analysis of the various crisis to move WCC forward, and his personal involvement in all activities to help Cambodia. Others could not join us because of conflict of schedule while Bang Sarath was not feeling well. We will try to do better next time to allow more participation, including the NW chapter members.

We had cordial discussion covering all issues related to WCC and Cambodia past, present and future. We reviewed the above issues in light of Bang Kiri¹s last two articles, and his past week luncheon with Jim Doran of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee. WCC past failures and achievements, and implication of current political environments on WCC activities, leadership and challenges were also discussed. We all agreed that our task is getting harder as time passes, and there is no other way, but to be realistic and determined.

The Cambodian political environment has not changed. There is nothing we can do as long as Sihanouk is in the political arena, willing and ready to support Hun Sen and the CPP. It is unfortunate that such an important figure that could help solve the country's crisis turns out to be an eternal obstacle. Sihanouk's kinship, in particular  his wife and children, are not any better than him because they only think of their personal comfort at the expense of the people, as always since the Angkor period. In other words, they all consider Cambodia as their personal fiefdom.

Hun Sen and his CPP are another major problem because they offer legitimacy to the Vietnamese policy of replacing the French in controlling Indochina. Far worse than the royal family, this group further derives its legitimacy with collaboration of the King and other political parties (especially FUNCINPEC) and thus continues to silence and eliminate those who understand and want to fight against the Vietnamese grand design of colonizing Cambodia. The current leadership is only there to enrich itself, and not to defend the country and its people.

It is too easy to blame the world for our problems, as most Cambodians do. It is true that the world, including some members of the US government, is supporting the current regime ³because there are no alternatives².  They cannot go against what they perceived as Sihanouk¹ s clear support for Hun Sen. It is also true that France and Japan, and to a larger extend the European Union are helping Hun Sen and his CPP. However, the world cannot do what Cambodians cannot do for themselves! The implementation of the 1991 Paris Accords and the aftermath of the bloody 1997 coup in addition to the violent suppression of peaceful demonstration against the 1998 election frauds were classic cases. Once they were ³considered² done, the world moved on to other issues because Cambodia does not have monopoly of the world agenda, nor does the world have unlimited resources to dispense to Cambodia. This is what Hun Sen received as advice from Mohammed Mahatir of Malaysia the so-called ³win/win² strategy.

Yet, WCC should not consider this situation as completely hopeless. As long as there are good Cambodians around, and there are plenty of them both inside and outside of the country, there is always hope. These Cambodians should get together, to openly discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and to agree on common objectives and strategies to follow. In other words, they should agree on a common platform to build on and work towards salvaging Cambodia from complete domination by the Vietnamese, if not extinction from the world map. They should also make sure that these principles, strategies and policies are well observed by all those who are in the movement, especially the leaders, to liberate the Cambodian people from the murderous grip of the CPP. If they adhere to such standards, they should be able to offer the real alternative to the current group of leaders who joined hands in destroying Cambodia at an alarming speed.

The 3-hour discussion included a good lunch of Bang Kiri¹s, a revelation of his culinary talent. We thanked him for his hospitality, and told him that we anxiously await the publication of his book that should offer a complete analysis of the Cambodian problems. It will be the first book from a Cambodian perspective that objectively analyzes the roots of all crises, rather than just the dramatization of personal accounts. We also thanked Pat who managed to join us in the last 30 minutes to further improve the pleasant gathering, and we left with a promise of maintaining the contacts in the future.

December 11, 2001

Pekthov Tan.