Human Rights or Wrongs?

Picture from the Phnom Penh Post          See full story here: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activist’s-facebook-firestorm

Human right or wrongs?

Virak's comment drew barrage of attacks from many individuals on Facebook. Some attacks are very blunt and quite heinous by calling him all sort of names and painting him with a broad brush. Ou Virak is a brother of Ou Chanroth and Ou Chanrith, both are now higher-ranking members of CNRP. I know both of them.

Whether we agree with Virak or not, Cambodians should exercise our restraints so that we don't go too far... as far as to character assassinate this brilliant young man who has served Khmer interests for many years.

I would encourage all of our friends to become brothers and perhaps we should dig for reasons to applaud rather than to scratch for excuse to gossip or to hate. I don't believe that Virak has any tiny bone in him that he would hate Cambodia or Cambodians. All of us, especially Cambodian political leaders, must tone down their rhetorics during this challenging time. Thinking before saying is better than saying before thinking. Maybe we should bite our tongue more often and taking the time to praise those who dare to do good for Khmer people regardless which side they belong to.

Virak may have a few points…on the Thais and the Vietnamese issues:

Politicians should show the world that they can work with the Thai and the Vietnamese, not against them. The United States are dealing directly with Vietnam now. UNTAC somehow tainted and established the word Yuon as racial. The Opposition needs to watch what they say, how they say and stop instilling and inciting fears into Khmer people’s mind about the Vietnamese issue. Fears feed more fears. Racial connotations should be tuned down and toned down. Teaching the people to understand our history and to help stop illegal immigration does not have to include racial attacks and or painting people with the same brush.

Bigger nations like the United States and other democratic nations that deal directly with Thailand and Vietnam won’t be able to help us much if we are perceived as racist. Even if Sam Rainsy is the Cambodian Prime Minister, he will have to work with the Thai and the Vietnamese. These two nations will still have major influences over Cambodia regardless of who runs it.

Remember, " it’s the economy stupid?" The world now is different.

Thank you.

Cambodia: sliding toward a 'jasmine spring'?

"Silence is not necessarily golden"

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Cambodia-sliding-toward-a-jasmine-spring-30213774.html

Cambodia: sliding toward a 'jasmine spring'?

Lawrence Gundersen 
Scott Mikalauskis August 31, 2013 1:00 am

Tanks and Sam Rainsy arrived in Cambodia last week. Rainsy arrived from the US, where he was attending his daughter's wedding and also drumming up support for his Cambodian National Rescue Party's (CNRP) call for an independent review of Cambodia's recent elections. Where the tanks arrived from, no one seems to want to say.

Rainsy has long been campaigning against Prime Minister Hun Sen, the longest-sitting leader in Southeast Asia. In public, Hun Sen has railed against the immorality vices such as alcohol and prostitution, and he deliberately carries himself in a manner evocative of a Khmer king. However, much of his political base is made up of the "Lexus-owning class" of Cambodian society: extremely rich elites who have made their fortunes on alcohol, prostitution and other forms of exploitation.

He has important foreign support as well. China, unbeknownst to many in the West, has been gradually and seriously arming Hun Sen's Cambodia. China has openly given and sold trucks, helicopters and even uniforms to Cambodia, while some tanks and armoured personnel carriers have arrived, via Eastern Europe, from murkier sources. (Through the fog of government evasion, we are meant to think that the personnel carriers are the Ukrainian BMP-1 - but they more closely resemble the nearly identical Chinese WZ-501.) Are these armaments purposed for defence of the frontier or for internal security? 

It is no secret that the US is courting countries like the Philippines and Vietnam to establish a bulwark against China's regional hegemony. China, meanwhile, has been successful in using Cambodia to splinter ASEAN unity over the South China Seas issue. China's South China Sea objectives are the key to understanding the developments inside Cambodia. Last year, for the first time in its 45-year history, ASEAN failed to put forward a joint communique. This prevented the issuing of a Code of Conduct, a necessary first step in joint negotiations with China over the South China Sea issues. China would much rather settle this matter through a string of bilateral negotiations rather than negotiate with a unified Asean. Cambodia has no claim of its own in the South China Sea, and so Beijing has done much to court Hun Sen.

The CNRP won a spectacular 55 of 123 National Assembly seats in this year's election, at least. They claim to have won as many as 63, but the elections appear to have been rigged, and a fair recount is being hindered by the ruling Cambodia People's Party (CPP). Meanwhile, Hun Sen has been deploying his new armaments post-election around the major cities to quell possible opposition demonstrations. Opposition supporters and politicians have been bullied, beat up and marginalised to the point where Cambodia is a powder keg. These armaments could ensure that Hun Sen remains in power, in a Mugabe-esque disregard for democratic process. This is both a reward to Hun Sen for his loyalty to China, and a way of ensuring that the Chinese have in Cambodia a leader they know how to work with. 

But there is also an important regional dimension: many of the personnel carriers to have arrived recently are tracked vehicles. In the muddy terrain of Cambodia, wheeled vehicles have always fared poorly, and the military have avoided them since the days of the Khmer Empire. Tracked vehicles in Cambodia are conceivably a threat to neighbours such as Thailand in a way that wheeled vehicles are not. And the current Thai government, goaded by its domestic political opposition, could be lured into an arms race with Cambodia. This would further splinter ASEAN and play into China's hand.

The US has suspended military cooperation and training exercises, and Australia has done the same in a show of support for Cambodia's opposition. The biggest danger to China's plans now, and the best hope for a unified Asean, is the growing opposition movement within Cambodia. We may be on the verge of a "Jasmine Spring", in which the people of Cambodia demand an end to the crony capitalism and heavy-handed governance that has been stifling economic growth for decades.

We might also be on the verge of another bloody chapter in Cambodia's history. In a nation where young people increasingly do not know what the Khmer Rouge did, where labour unrest and land seizures are increasingly common, and where wages have remained stagnant, trouble is brewing. Will the ruling party accept a verifiable recount, a growing opposition, and a possible turnout from office in the next election? Or, does a country with such a violent and genocidal history turn into another Egypt, Zimbabwe or Iraq? For a country we have come to love and admire, we hope for the former.

Lawrence Gundersen is a professor of history and political science at the University of Tennessee. Scott Mikalauskis is a graduate student in Southeast Asian Studies in Bangkok.

On the Demonstration at the U.N. : Do the protesters know that the UN can't get involved?

On the Demonstration at the U.N. : 

Do the protesters know that the UN can't get involved?

On Monday August 19, 2013--a beautiful sunny day-- hundreds of people of all ages came from different parts of New York and many other states mostly the East coast of the United States.  They came by cars, buses, and train a well as by air. 

On a sidewalk nearby the park, as I was walking of 1st Avenue toward the crowd, a couple American bystanders asked me what were the protesters doing [protesting about]? I told them it was about the results of the Cambodian election. They asked me why did they protest at the U.N? I smiled and walked on.  

In the crowd, a young lady who was standing beside me in the front line among the deafening and cheering crowd repeating a slogan aloud, " We need Yuon, We need Yuon, We need Yuon"....

When I teased her why did she say she needed Yuon? She said with a smile, “We need Yuon." And of course she meant "U.N." But, when she said it so fast, U.N sounded like "Yuon." :-)

As I looked at the enthusiastic crowd I wondered if they all knew that their voice would fall on a deaf ear. Not that the United Nations is heartless, but it just cannot not get involved in Cambodia's internal affairs without Cambodia's request. And for now, Cambodia is under Hun Sen's leadership. Many local and regional leaders including the leader of China, Vietnam and Thailand seem to favor the results projected by the Cambodian National Election Committee.

The protest was supposed to be held to request the United Nations and internal community to find ways and means to help investigate the alleged fraudulent electoral processes of July 28th, but unfortunately, many protesters also strongly expressed their anger directly toward Premier Hun Sen and his government.

Many protesters shouted, "Hun Sen Must Go!" or must step down and others scolded him with strong vocabularies and adjectives. The demands went beyond the protested theme of "election fraud" presumably committed by the NEC.  

Although it was an exciting moment, the activities went a bit too far that could stain the image of the event. At one point, the police had to tell us to remove all sticks and poles from the crowd and to adjust the sound system that was too noisy and many sound system were not supposed to used.  

Whether it was initially indented or not, this incident could also happen to the so-called widespread protest in Cambodia if such a protest is not carefully planned and controlled properly.  

Nevertheless, the small NYC Park on the corner of 47th St and First Avenue is a memorable place where many Cambodians have been using to vent out our frustrations over various issues for at least 30 years.

What will the protesters in New York and elsewhere expect from this special event?

Besides coming back to cheer each other up about the instant serge of democracy in Cambodia and to vent out their frustrations at the same playground, most of them left New York City with a high hope and anticipation. The hope that one of these days justice will come to their country--Cambodia.

In reality, because of the restrictions, the U.N. may not be able to help, but at least the messages will get to Cambodian leaders on both sides that what ever they do, they are being observed and assessed not just by Cambodians inside Cambodia but in the world.

Today these people may not be happy with Premier Hun Sen's regime and about the elections; tomorrow it will be about something else.

Although the current Opposition leaders may enjoy hearing about the demonstration to support them, they must also realize that such supports will disappear if they break their promises and their words. 

Funcinpec used to experience the same level of supports in the past, but this party has shrunken or self-destructed from 58 seats to 43, 26, 2, and 0 in this past election. 

 Will the fate of CNRP be the same as FUNCINPEC?  Only time can tell.

On widespread protests: Prevent violence is a better choice!

On widespread protests: Prevent violence is a better choice!

It is almost certain that if the widespread protests were to happen, violence would follow.

The violence is likely to happen not because the leaders want it to occur, but because the leaders cannot control the situations in which the emotions of hatred, anger, revenge, fears and jealousy, etc.… are high among the participants. Such emotions have been instilled in people’s heart and mind for quite some time. Mostly are from careless using of political rhetoric.

When you put an angry person by himself to yell and scream on the street, the effect of his anger is small and less harmful; however, when you place thousands of people who are hateful, angry, revengeful, fearful and jealous in the same place, you will multiply the harmful effects by thousands times. It is likened to pouring thousands of gallons of deadly fuel onto a small fire. The negative emotions are high and all you need is a little spark of fire to detonate. 

It is the Universal law. Negative attracts more negatives and they just cannot produce positive results.

Cambodia has gone through such situations many times in the past. That is one of the reasons why its populations have been reduced to where they are now. They have killed each other from within with such negative emotions and attitudes that are not well analyzed and understood.

Cambodians have spoken their mind on the 28th of July. They had chosen to go to voting booths to use the ballots because they wanted peaceful solutions to their many challenges in life. There is no reason political leaders cannot do the same—using all peaceful means to help those who voted for them.

Help fulfill their dreams rather than break their heart and trust. Stop the rhetoric and prevent violence while you still can.

It’s a better choice.

Peace!

Timothy Chhim

New York 08-08-13

Positive suggestions For the OPPOSITION!

For the OPPOSITION!

Here are some positive suggestions:

On the election:
If you join the election, join it!
Threatening to boycott the election is a rusty, old and dull chisel. Declaring the election process as unfair, not free and yet participating in it anyway is another weakness that makes the world getting whacked. The CPP knows this well and use it to its benefit. If you join the election, join it. Ask the world to come in and help monitor the election. Don’t stop them. Why the fear? When you find that the election is rigged and unacceptable, prove it and show it to the world and help correct it with positive attitude. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

On your Opponent:
Learn from your Opponent!
The Opposition needs to learn from the CPP. Many CPP ‘s Opponents are blinded by their hatred, anger, revenge and are biased to the point that they do not want to learn from what the CPP has been doing to keep on winning. They resort to personal attacks. When they watch Hun Sen’s speeches, they only see the bad remarks that he makes and don’t bother to realize that Hun Sen does not speak to “the world” but to those who speak the same language as he does—the average Cambodians. They should realize that the world don’t and can’t vote, but the average Cambodians do and can.

On your image: 
Arrogance is destructive!
The Opposition leaders need to stop being arrogant. One of the behaviors that the Opposition needs to change is to stop looking down on the CPP leaders as monkeys, an ignorant bunch, animals, criminals, traitors and all other negative adjectives that if people of the world really know what they mean they will view the Opposition as extremists. Such destructive expressions and behaviors will repel not only voters at the grassroots levels mostly controlled by the CPP, but they will make the “International Community” think twice. Remember, birds of a feather flock together.

On the Vietnamese issue:
Show the world that you can work with the Vietnamese, not against them. The Opposition needs to stop instilling fears into Khmer people’s mind about the Vietnamese issue. Fears feed more fears. Racial connotations should be tuned down and toned down. Teaching the people to understand our history and to help stop illegal immigration does not have to include racial attacks and or painting people with the same brush. Bigger nations like the United States and other democratic nations that deal directly with Vietnam won’t be able to help you much. Remember, it’s the economy stupid. The world now is different.

On your organizational structure!
Help close all leaks in your organization, morally, financially and materially. 

Organize your mind first and close all leaks of your good morality if you have it. If you need help, get help to gain or regain your good moral conducts. There are plenty of institutions that can teach you and some of them are for free---good Buddhist temples. However paying someone to help you and your organization is better, because you will value it more. But, the best person who can help you most effectively is YOU. 

Don’t trade your integrity with the immoralities found in the current society that you want to change. Keep your ethical conducts checked if you want to give your life to the public and if you want to make a living from serving the people. Your mind is the ground for all things. Therefore your outside organization is only as good as your inside one. 

If you fail to clean your mind then you won’t be able to have a clean and uncorrupted organization. If your organization is corrupted, your political life or public life will also end sooner or later. In addition, you will not be able to challenge others about their weaknesses because you also have your own. Two wrongs can’t be right. Two rights can’t be wrong. So, be on the right side. You are in the business to save our country, don’t mess up our country with your immoral activities. 

Good morality is the most important. Once you apply it, others will follow. It begins with your admission that your own past is imperfect but don’t use this “no one is perfect” reason as an alibi to continue doing the same things. 

Tell everyone in your organization that you and everyone will start it freshly and get him or her involved in special training for political and professional ethics and moral principles. Once your members at all levels improve their morality, you will see less corruption inside your own organization. You will save money, time and effort. This can be translated into more votes. And even if your opponents wrongly attack you, the whole world will know, especially your own little world will judge you appropriately. 

For now, as I can see it, your organization is like a Swiss cheese with holes, close them holes. Begin it now with the correction of your morality. 

You may tell us the “it’s easy said that done” jingle and use it as an alibi not to correct your mental attitude, but remember this: You are in the business to do the hardest thing for our country. If it were easy, someone else would have done it long before you. 

Just do it.

Positive Suggestions for The Opposition

For the OPPOSITION!

Here are some positive suggestions:

On the election:
If you join the election, join it!
Threatening to boycott the election is a rusty, old and dull chisel. Declaring the election process as unfair, not free and yet participating in it anyway is another weakness that makes the world getting whacked. The CPP knows this well and use it to its benefit. If you join the election, join it. Ask the world to come in and help monitor the election. Don’t stop them. Why the fear? When you find that the election is rigged and unacceptable, prove it and show it to the world and help correct it with positive attitude. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

On your Opponent:
Learn from your Opponent!
The Opposition needs to learn from the CPP. Many CPP ‘s Opponents are blinded by their hatred, anger, revenge and are biased to the point that they do not want to learn from what the CPP has been doing to keep on winning. They resort to personal attacks. When they watch Hun Sen’s speeches, they only see the bad remarks that he makes and don’t bother to realize that Hun Sen does not speak to “the world” but to those who speak the same language as he does—the average Cambodians. They should realize that the world don’t and can’t vote, but the average Cambodians do and can.

On your image: 
Arrogance is destructive!
The Opposition leaders need to stop being arrogant. One of the behaviors that the Opposition needs to change is to stop looking down on the CPP leaders as monkeys, an ignorant bunch, animals, criminals, traitors and all other negative adjectives that if people of the world really know what they mean they will view the Opposition as extremists. Such destructive expressions and behaviors will repel not only voters at the grassroots levels mostly controlled by the CPP, but they will make the “International Community” think twice. Remember, birds of a feather flock together.

On the Vietnamese issue:
Work with the Vietnamese, not for them or against them!
Show the world that you can work with the Vietnamese, not against them. The Opposition needs to stop instilling fears into Khmer people’s mind about the Vietnamese issue. Fears feed more fears. Racial connotations should be tuned down and toned down. Teaching the people to understand our history and to help stop illegal immigration does not have to include racial attacks and or painting people with the same brush. Bigger nations like the United States and other democratic nations that deal directly with Vietnam won’t be able to help you much. Remember, it’s the economy stupid. The world now is different.

On your organizational structure:
Help close all leaks in your organization, morally, financially and materially! 

Organize your mind first and close all leaks of your good morality if you have it. If you need help, get help to gain or regain your good moral conducts. There are plenty of institutions that can teach you and some of them are for free---good Buddhist temples. However paying someone to help you and your organization is better, because you will value it more. But, the best person who can help you most effectively is YOU. 

Don’t trade your integrity with the immoralities found in the current society that you want to change. Keep your ethical conducts checked if you want to give your life to the public and if you want to make a living from serving the people. Your mind is the ground for all things. Therefore your outside organization is only as good as your inside one. 

If you fail to clean your mind then you won’t be able to have a clean and uncorrupted organization. If your organization is corrupted, your political life or public life will also end sooner or later. In addition, you will not be able to challenge others about their weaknesses because you also have your own. Two wrongs can’t be right. Two rights can’t be wrong. So, be on the right side. You are in the business to save our country, don’t mess up our country with your immoral activities. 

Good morality is the most important. Once you apply it, others will follow. It begins with your admission that your own past is imperfect but don’t use this “no one is perfect” reason as an alibi to continue doing the same things. 

Tell everyone in your organization that you and everyone will start it freshly and get him or her involved in special training for political and professional ethics and moral principles. Once your members at all levels improve their morality, you will see less corruption inside your own organization. You will save money, time and effort. This can be translated into more votes. And even if your opponents wrongly attack you, the whole world will know, especially your own little world will judge you appropriately. 

For now, as I can see it, your organization is like a Swiss cheese with holes, close them holes. Begin it now with the correction of your morality. 

You may tell us the “it’s easy said that done” jingle and use it as an alibi not to correct your mental attitude, but remember this: You are in the business to do the hardest thing for our country. If it were easy, someone else would have done it long before you. 

Just do it.

Timothy Chhim
June 24, 2013

Making a difference by sharing the past

Making a difference

It was an amazing afternoon at the Haverstraw Elementary School where some four hundreds bright young eyes with an unusual look focusing on me at the same time.

They were eyes of those children who saw for the first time a man who could make a difference in their lives, a man who could bring them hope, courage and success.

That man was me: Timothy Chhim, a person who escaped the Killing Field, the most heinous crime of this century. How did I do it? You will see a bit and piece of it via their testimonies below...

Many thanks to Mrs. Suzanna Chhim-Parisi for making this wonderful event happened... 

I thank you, too, guys, for giving me a great opportunity to share my past with you and most importantly for paying close attention to my personal story. Your testimonies were very moving and they made me feel so special, indeed.

Yes, soon you will have an opportunity to read a short version of my journey and then with the help of that little guy sitting on my shoulder, some publishing companies will decide that this story is worth sharing with millions of young adults out there and later on the adult version will also be published.... That is the plan. Stay tuned.

I am going to make some comments regarding your meaningful letter later on when I have time. I love to show the world your name and signature; but for your own privacy, I blocked them. I know that you know which letter belongs to you and belongs to your friends if you happen to view my blog.

Here they are... and be patient. Everyone of them is going to be posted here!
Click on it to read!

A lesson from the past: Homeland’s call lures candidates

A lesson from the past

http://phnompenhpost.com/2013053165989/National/homeland-s-call-lures-candidates.html

Five years ago, In 2008 Campaign for a change, some of my close friends from inside and outside of Cambodia told and teased me I was a piece of the "Three-layer Pork Meet" or "sach chrouk bei choan" for the local politicians. :-)

I din't know what they meant and didn't believe what they said until some $70,000 later. A great lesson to learn.

So guys, I mean professional politicians, if you want to change Cambodia, you need to change your ways of thinking and your ways of doing things to help her. Change your morality.

If you are thinking or doing the same things---like what you have done previously-- you will get the same result. Worst of all, you will destroy the future of Cambodian oppositions of the next generations.

Khmer people from abroad are naive and mostly honest. They use their heart to think and not their head. A few are greedy, many are hopeful of course, but they don't know much about your tricks or treats.

They trust you wholeheartedly with their life and hard-earned money. Not every Cambodian here in the US earns $10,000 dollars a month. Many get less than that per year...but with the excitements, incitements and mostly fears about the future of our beloved country, they sacrifice their time, money and life.



So have your morality checked! Wear your honesty hat. Be truthful to them. Give innocent people like Mr. Pin a chance to serve Cambodia. And, yes, you can do it. He is not your piece of the "Three-layer Pork Meet."

Timothy Chhim

"Silence is not necessarily golden"

Youth and Wisdom

Youth and Wisdom

When Professor Surya Subedi, The UN special envoy on human rights to Cambodia, was under verbal attacks by young students in Phnom Penh, he did not react. He responded with kindness.

It's better off to respond rather than to react in any situation.

Why didn't Surya react, but responded?

Wisdom only comes to us when we trade it in with our age--time. We gain our wisdom by trading our youth away. Both youth and wisdom rarely occupy us at the same time.

Surya gains his wisdom through time and experience that he has given.

All Khmers regardless of our political affiliations must learn from Surya and help him to help us. Some of us decided to react with violent words.

Violent words are harmful.

This is one of the reasons why the CPP will do everything to stay in power. Violence will be met by violence.

Violent words are dangerous and they can come back to hunt those who use them. They create fears on both sides and fear (the opposite of faith) is one of the negative emotions that destroys human development.

There is a saying that, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

We should find a better reason or reasons why we should or should not need the UN... and not to condemn, threaten or label those who have opposing views.

This is one of the weaknesses that Hun Sen's opponents fail to realize.

On the one hand they cry for the UN to help, on the other hand, they violate the very principles that the UN preaches. They make it harder for the UN to do their job.

Only good can win over evil.

Timothy Chhim

Fact or Fiction: Can you tell?

Fact or Fiction?

Whether it is off line or on line, if an author is a scaremonger, scandalmonger, rumormonger, manipulator, or hate writer who write with the intention to confuse readers, to harm or hurt individuals, to threaten or destabilize a society or a country; that author is out of line.

A sample from FaceBook

The majority of Cambodians still live in a fragile society. They have good heart yet are prone to believe in misinformation and deception. 

A sample of one of the publications posting on KI-Media

Hearing, seeing, reading any false publications can have adverse effects to their thinking---which require more training and learning how to think accurately.

http://www.pressocm.gov.kh/site/videoplayer/4814.html#.UaDoCWT71Us

A sample of one of the publications posting on Cambodia's Government Press

As for a reader, it is important that he or she "can read” and knows how to read.

The ability to "read" should include the skill to separate fact from fiction; understand the truth versus false and to think accurately and to analyze with care if the given information is just propaganda for political gains.

Misinformation, disinformation and deception are the effective works of the Devil.

Beware!

Timothy Chhim

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465832/National/online-or-out-of-line.html