Cambodian lessons for South Korea

Apr 29, 2010
By Donald Kirk
Asia Times Online (Hong Kong)

SAIGON - North Korea's apparent torpedoing of a South Korean navy ship and getting away from the scene of the crime with no more than recriminations and oratorical flourishes ringing in the ears of the perpetrators demonstrates a reality from which there is no escape. The North still has thousands of artillery pieces within range of metropolitan Seoul and the nearby port of Incheon as well as missiles with the range to reach anywhere in the South, and nobody in South Korea really wants to challenge that kind of threat.

South Korea is doing so well economically and living standards are so high that the idea of seeking anything other than rhetorical revenge for the sinking of the Cheonan with a loss of 46 lives on March 26 appears almost unthinkable. Certainly South Korea would get no support for such a venture from its American ally, bogged down in wars in the Middle East and attempting to force South Korean generals reluctantly to believe they should take full command of all forces in the South in the event of a second Korean war.

While South Korea's economy grows at a pace ahead of that of the rest of the industrial world, South Korean military people worry over what they see as the North's alarming new strategy. That is, to chip away at the South Koreans with attacks such as that on the hapless navy corvette in the West or Yellow Sea - and maybe bold quick hits on Seoul and Incheon.

The point, according to JoongAng Ilbo, one of South Korea's major newspapers, would eventually be to occupy a portion of metropolitan Seoul and then to negotiate a ceasefire. The paper quoted a military intelligence source as saying North Korea had strengthened its mechanized forces near the line with South Korea. At the same time, North Korea is bolstering naval forces on its southwest coast and threatening new attacks on South Korean vessels along the Northern Limit Line below which the South bans all North Korean boats.

While reluctant to do anything that might provoke armed conflict with North Korea, US and South Korean analysts wonder how long the North can carry on with such impunity. They see no let-up in the harshness of life for the vast majority of North Koreans - and ask whether any system can endure forever while the economy deteriorates, citizens gain slightly more knowledge of the outside world via illicit cell phones and short-range radios and ailing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il smoothes the way for transition of power to his youngest son.

For precedent, it's tempting to turn to the case of Cambodia after the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April 1975.

The Dear Leader's rule may not be cruelest the world has seen since the defeat of Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1945 or the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953. That distinction probably belongs to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, who ruled from the once tranquil capital of Phnom Penh until December 1978 when Vietnamese communist troops drove them out. About two million people are estimated to have died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge from starvation, executions, torture and disease.

Although comparisons may seem far-fetched, the suffering under the Khmer Rouge is reminiscent of that endured for many more years in North Korea.

Today, however, Phnom Penh is bustling, alive with shops selling an incredible range of exotic silk, statuary, silver objects and souvenirs. Restaurants offer any kind of menu. The streets are swarming with traffic as motor scooters dart in and out and larger vehicles carry people and commercial products. Motorcycles pulling what look like small old-fashioned carriages offer taxi services. Internet cafes thrive in every market place. Casinos and nightclubs lure those in search of higher-priced fun, and the National Museum and Royal Palace offer lush and rich glimpses into Khmer civilization and heritage going back 2,000 years.

So what lesson is there in the transformation of Cambodia from a frightening dictatorship into a hustling if not exactly democratic society? Cambodia's present system, in which Hun Sen has ruled as prime minister with the backing of Vietnam almost constantly for 25 years, is obviously not ideal. Many of the country's 15 million people continue to suffer economically.

And it's fair to assume that torture and killing go on, although not on a mass scale. In an imperfect world, however, Cambodia gives every appearance of having recovered its erstwhile reputation as an "oasis of peace". That was how then prince Norodom Sihanouk - who before and after ruled as king - described Cambodia when it was navigating a treacherous course of neutrality as American and South Vietnamese forces fought the North Vietnamese until the US-backed regime fell in Vietnam two weeks after the defeat of that in Cambodia in 1975.

Incredibly, Sihanouk has survived, so much so that in his old age he endures as a kind of king emeritus above the tawdry power politics that periodically shakes up the elite of the capital six years after his eldest son, Norodom Sihamoni, was crowned as his successor.

The survival of the throne, however, represents a grand compromise in which momentous changes had to occur before Cambodia could begin to reach its current level of peace and prosperity. The Pol Pot regime had to fall, and the men around him, those responsible for forms of torture matched and exceeded only by the security apparatus of Kim Jong-il, had to flee, be killed or captured, to disappear forever. The lesson here may not be lost on South Koreans or their American ally.

There is, however, another irony here: that communist Vietnam, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, united between North and South Vietnam, drove out the Khmer Rouge. How was it that the forces of a communist country, against which the Americans and South Vietnamese, supported by two divisions of South Koreans, had fought for a generation, could have accomplished such a stunning success for the everlasting benefit of the Cambodian people?

The answer in part is that Vietnam, after the communist victory in 1975, was never a terrible dictatorship on the scale of North Korea. As Vietnam's leadership went through its own tortuous policy shifts, market capitalism began to flourish. Vietnamese gained a level of cultural and economic freedom that had not appeared possible in 1975. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh, who led Vietnam's communist regime until his death in 1969, never gained a reputation for pervasive cruelty over his own people even as he ruthlessly suppressed opponents.

Vastly different though the societies and cultures of Cambodia and North Korea undoubtedly are, the conclusion seems clear. There can be no real compromise with the Kim Jong-il regime. The history of regimes such as that in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge is they do not willingly yield, do not suddenly adopt humanitarian policies and do not give up the props of their rule, notably their weapons. It's wishful thinking to expect North Korea to shift its policies or honor any agreement on much of anything, including its nuclear weapons program. It took an upheaval to bring about relief from suffering in Cambodia, and it will take another to reform North Korea.

Donald Kirk, based in Seoul, covered the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia for newspapers and magazine, writing two books about them. He has also written three books on Korea, most recently Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine.

Cambodia is Facing up to its Genocide says Youk Chhang

More than 30 years after the darkest chapter in its history, Cambodia remains a damaged and fragile society, Youk Chhang, an expert on the Cambodian genocide and the man leading the Documentation Center of Cambodia told an audience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

April 2010

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — More than 30 years after the darkest chapter in its history, Cambodia remains a damaged and fragile society, a leading Cambodian genocide expert told an audience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Cambodia is still suffering from the legacy of the Khmer Rouge, the brutal, ultra-communist regime that ruled the Southeast Asian country from 1975 to 1979. Cambodia is like shattered glass, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam). "It's a fragile, broken society as a nation. People are divided," he said in an April 22 talk. "You drop a glass on the floor. It’s broken."

DC-Cam, a Phnom Penh non-profit group founded in 1995, gathers and researches information and materials related to the Khmer Rouge regime. DC-Cam's twin missions are preserving Cambodia's historical memory and helping to bring justice for victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities. The group has collected more than one million documents, interviewed thousands of former Khmer Rouge cadres and identified or mapped 20,000 mass graves and nearly 200 prisons. Its documentation has served as evidence in the United Nations-backed genocide tribunals being held in Cambodia to try former regime leaders. It has the world's largest repository of Khmer Rouge-related materials, much of it available online for free.

At Stanford, Chhang also had a positive message about Cambodia's progress toward renewal and reconciliation. Cambodian schools are beginning to teach the full history of the Khmer Rouge period, a step toward confronting the past and moving on. The genocide tribunals are underway, potentially bringing justice and closure. And DC-Cam's mission of educating the world about the Cambodian genocide could help prevent such atrocities in the future.

"The job of the whole nation is to pick up all the little pieces to put back together," said Chhang. Cambodians, can "be proud of the genocide that we have lived through." "I’m proud to tell you that I have survived genocide and can tell you the story. I am no longer a victim," declared Chhang, who was named one of the world’s 100 "heroes and pioneers" by Time magazine in 2007.

The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, ruled Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979, aiming to build an agrarian utopia based on Maoist ideals. About two million Cambodians lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge to execution, starvation, disease, or overwork. Thousands of Cambodians were forced to labor in the countryside. Political enemies were slaughtered, giving rise to the term "killing fields", portrayed in a 1984 movie of the same name.

Chhang was 14 when the Khmer Rouge came to power, forcing him and other teenagers into hard labor in the countryside. Chhang's brother-in-law died after a public beating to punish him for stealing leftover cucumbers to feed his pregnant wife, Chhang's sister. The sister was accused of eating the stolen food and perished after her stomach was cut open.

The genocide has left Cambodians deeply divided. Chhang said his niece, who lost her mother in the butchering, is now in her late 30's and living in Maryland. She refuses to return to her homeland and disagrees with Chhang's work in support of the genocide tribunal. Chhang's mother, who lost her own parents, siblings and some of her children, has forgiven the Khmer Rouge perpetrators and is indifferent toward the tribunals. "In the same family, my niece, mother, and I are divided about how justice should be done," said Chhang. "I support the tribunal. I want justice. I would not reach for forgiveness without prosecution."

The Cambodian genocide tribunal, established in early 2006 with support from the UN, so far has tried one defendant, the former chief of a notorious torture prison. Four other top Khmer Rouge officials are being held for a second trial. Donor countries have provided more than $100 million to support the proceedings, according to the Associated Press. Although some have criticized the tribunal as too little, too late, Chhang sees it as necessary step in Cambodia’s healing process. "The tribunal is about the future, basically."

He also believes that teaching history to a new generation of Cambodians will promote reconciliation. To that end, DC-Cam has published the first Cambodian textbook on Khmer Rouge history, a topic long ignored in the nation's classrooms. Fourteen years after the idea for the textbook emerged, the history book is finally being used in Cambodian high schools this year.

Chhang's talk was sponsored by at the business school's Public Management Program; the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies; and MBA student participants in a recent service learning trip to Cambodia and Thailand. In addition to speaking to GSB students, Chhang was scheduled to speak with Hoover Institution officials about digitizing and archiving DC-CAM's materials.

DC-Cam was founded as an office of the Yale University Cambodian Genocide Program. It became an independent institute in 1997. It employs about 50 people and has funding from the U.S. and Swedish governments.

— Maria Shao

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/chhang-Cambodia.html

Rebellious Mood Takes Root in Rural Thailand

Red-shirted protesters in Bangkok on Friday. Farmers who say they were never interested in politics are donating large sums to the red-shirt movement. (Agnes Dherbeys for The New York Times)
The widow of Praison Tiplom, a protester killed in Bangkok, held a picture of her husband during his funeral last Saturday. (Thomas Fuller/The International Herald Tribune)
The red shirts have a core of support in Khon Kaen. (The New York Times)

April 23, 2010
By THOMAS FULLER
The New York Times

KHON KAEN, Thailand — Six weeks of demonstrations by red-shirted protesters turned violent this week in Bangkok, but the capital is not the only place with a whiff of insurrection in the air.

On this poor and rugged plateau in Thailand’s hinterland, farmers who say they were never interested in politics are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the red shirt movement. In at least three northeastern cities, red shirts are holding nightly rallies, sometimes drawing thousands of people.

This week, Red Station Radio, an antigovernment FM station based here in Khon Kaen, about 280 miles north of Bangkok, broadcast a warning that a train was heading to Bangkok carrying military vehicles. In no time, hundreds of red shirt supporters, who have followed the protests daily with the broadcasts, mobilized to block it.

Indeed, this rural region — home to a third of Thailand’s population — forms much of the core of the red shirt movement, demonstrating the magnitude of the challenge facing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whom the protesters are pressuring to step down and call new elections.

On Friday, protest leaders in Bangkok offered to negotiate an end to the standoff if Mr. Abhisit would dissolve Parliament within one month, instead of immediately. The gesture eased tensions slightly a day after one person was killed and scores were wounded when grenades exploded near red shirt barricades in the capital.

But the anger here in the countryside will not be easily dissipated after simmering for more than three years since the military coup that overthrew Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire tycoon turned prime minister, who is seen as the first politician to have seriously addressed the concerns of the poor.

Mr. Thaksin’s wealth and patronage network remain important drivers of the protests, but the movement also appears to be taking on a grass-roots character, with farmers and villagers finding common cause and demonstrating a new assertiveness.

The people of this northeastern plateau, known as Isaan, speak dialects similar to the Lao and Cambodian languages and generally work as farmers, manual laborers and factory workers.

The red shirts have railed against the “double standards” in Thai society — the wealthy, the Bangkok elite and the top military brass break laws with impunity, the protest leaders say, while the poor are held to account.

Radio stations like Red Station Radio have played a crucial role in spreading that message in the countryside. Red Station Radio, which operates from an unmarked office, has rapidly expanded since it started operating in November, and now has six affiliates in and around this city.

Its disc jockeys urge supporters to disrupt visits by senior government officials. One D.J. is even a full-time police officer, who uses the on-air name Noi Tamrung to protect his identity and, he says, avoid being fired. Many other police officers also back the movement, its supporters say.

“Don’t come here — that’s the message,” said Noi Tamrung. “We reject anyone from this government.”

Government supporters have called for the stations to be shut down, and the government has already banned some Web sites of the red-shirt movement, including the site of Red Station Radio. But the red shirts here have vowed to physically block any attempt to close the station, such is its support among farmers.

One farmer, Takum Srihangkod, listens constantly to broadcasts of protests in Bangkok with a cheap Chinese-made radio that he tucks into his waistband, next to his slingshot.

“Abhisit doesn’t want anything to do with poor people,” Mr. Takum said of the prime minister as he tended his cattle. His radio even stayed tuned to the protests as he muscled out a newborn calf in a difficult birth.

Supporters of the government often portray the red shirts as a mob for hire, mercenary protesters who receive a daily stipend. In a country with a long tradition of vote buying, that may be true for some.

But villagers bristle when asked if they are being paid to protest. Local officials and police officers describe a widespread fund-raising effort to support the demonstrators in Bangkok.

“We help each other,” said Triem Tongkod, a farmer who grows sticky rice in a village outside Khon Kaen. Pickup trucks with loudspeakers travel through his village periodically asking for donations. “You give what you can afford,” Mr. Triem said.

Last Saturday, at a Buddhist temple about 35 miles outside Khon Kaen, Mr. Triem was one of thousands of people who attended the funeral of Praison Tiplom, a protester killed in the April 10 crackdown on the red shirt protests in Bangkok. A total of 25 people died, including five soldiers, in circumstances that remain under investigation.

The deaths of protesters have become an opportunity to rally support and gather donations. At the funeral last Saturday, organizers collected about $9,400 for Mr. Praison’s widow, according to Num Chaiya, a D.J. at Red Station Radio who helped organize the funeral.

It was far from a typical somber ceremony, the crowd cheering loudly as Mr. Praison’s coffin, draped with the Thai flag, was carried around the crematorium three times. “Give a big hand to a warrior of the people!” Mr. Num exhorted the crowd. Almost all wore red.

Organizers of the red shirts have begun selling DVDs eulogizing the dead protesters and showing scenes of the April 10 crackdown. Along the highway, one DVD salesman, Pornchai Nanthaphothi, operates a stall festooned with red flags and other red shirt paraphernalia. A bandanna he sells is embossed with the words, “I’m not scared of you.”

“This area is nearly 100 percent red,” Mr. Pornchai said.

Successive Thai governments, including the current one, have tried to develop the Isaan region, but persistent income inequality and the need for more doctors, universities and jobs have fueled the protest movement, said Krasae Chanawongse, a medical doctor by training who has worked as a minister in four previous governments.

Thailand’s centralized political system has engendered a “colonial attitude of governors” posted here, he said. “They are more or less dictating, not consulting,” he said.

Some analysts question the durability of the red shirts, because of their close affiliation with Mr. Thaksin, but supporters here in the northeast say the movement has taken on larger goals.

In a country that has seen more than a dozen coups over the past eight decades, Chaisawat Weangwong, a 42-year old rice farmer, said the crisis had opened his eyes to the influence of the military in Thai politics and the need for a system where “the majority chooses the winner.”

“This is not for Thaksin,” he said. “This is for democracy.”