Hun Sen’s war calculations
PHNOM PENH—Fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border continued over the weekend after two agreed ceasefires broke down last week. At least 17 people have been killed and 50,000 evacuated on both sides of the border since the latest round of armed skirmishes and diplomatic salvos commenced on April 22. Some analysts now wonder whether the sustained...
Like father, like son in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH–ON May 29, 1999, Hun Manet, the eldest son of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, mounted the dais at the United States Military Academy at West Point to collect his diploma from General Dennis J Reimer, the US Army’s former chief of staff. Clad in a traditional grey jacket and red sash, then 21-year-old...
Bangladesh braces for divisive war-crimes trial
DHAKA – A SPECIAL tribunal in Bangladesh has indicted four members of the country’s main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, on suspicion of committing mass atrocities during the country’s 1971 Liberation War. Those arrested, including party president Motiur Rahman Nizami and his deputy Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, have been remanded in custody indefinitely and are likely to...
Geopolitics behind a Cambodian conviction
PHNOM PENH – EARLY on November 24, 2000, about 70 gunmen slipped into the center of Cambodia’s capital city. After drinking and singing traditional songs at a karaoke bar, one unit of men moved towards a series of government buildings armed with AK-47 rifles, grenades and B-40 rocket launchers.
An icon fades in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – BY uprooting six wooden border markers last October along the Vietnamese border, Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy again cast himself in the familiar role of a thorn in the flesh of authority. Earlier this year, a court sentenced Rainsy to two years in prison in absentia for uprooting the posts. He now...
China’s soft power hardens in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH – A DAY after Cambodian authorities spirited 20 ethnic Uighur asylum seekers out of the country on an unmarked charter flight, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping touched down at Siem Reap International Airport. During his three-day visit in late December, the Chinese leader signed an unprecedented US$1.2 billion in economic aid agreements with...
Cambodia balances East and West
PHNOM PENH – AT a ceremony last month marking the construction of the US$128 million Cambodia-China Prek Kdam Friendship Bridge in Kandal province, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said the growth in aid and investment from China was boosting economic development and strengthening his country’s “political independence”. “China respects the political decisions of Cambodia,” he...
Cambodia’s monarchy quietly evolves
PHNOM PENH–FIVE years on from King Norodom Sihanouk’s intricately-scripted departure from the political stage, Cambodia’s new monarch Norodom Sihamoni is quietly and finally emerging from his father’s shadow. Enthroned by French colonial authorities in 1941, Sihanouk grew into a national symbol and wily political operator, entrenching himself at the center of the country’s political life...
