FOR PUBLICATION
AHRC-ETC-039-2010
November 15, 2010
An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission
As a student of politics, I understand the usefulness of letter writing, petitioning, appealing to foreign leaders for help. I myself have used these tools. But not today, I have stood as only an observer of Khmer democrats who write, petition, appeal to outside agents to intervene as "elected" dictator Hun Sen, and his ruling Cambodian People's Party, trample the 19 year old Paris Peace Accords, the country's Constitution, democracy, human rights, the rule of law.
As one feels feeble and unable to throw off the yoke of a dictatorship on one's own, one tends to look to others for help. But, are Khmer democrats and rights activists truly weak and incapable, or do their entreaties to foreign governments and international agencies confirm what a Western writer dubbed the "Cambodian dependency syndrome"?
Lessons I learned
I left the Khmer national resistance 21 years ago this month, after nine years of struggle for rights and freedom. I spent nearly a decade working with Khmer nationalists to establish a government for the country of my birth that would serve its citizens well and respect their civil rights; rights about which I learned in high school, college, and graduate school. My belief in the inherent right of individuals to these freedoms has not waned, but I learned in the course of my activism that no outside influence can deliver to oppressed Khmers the rights and the freedom they so badly want; and that an outside force considers helping only if it sees potential in the Khmers and an ability to provide a honorable and credible alternative to the tyranny they oppose.
Please click here to read more...
As a student of politics, I understand the usefulness of letter writing, petitioning, appealing to foreign leaders for help. I myself have used these tools. But not today, I have stood as only an observer of Khmer democrats who write, petition, appeal to outside agents to intervene as "elected" dictator Hun Sen, and his ruling Cambodian People's Party, trample the 19 year old Paris Peace Accords, the country's Constitution, democracy, human rights, the rule of law.
As one feels feeble and unable to throw off the yoke of a dictatorship on one's own, one tends to look to others for help. But, are Khmer democrats and rights activists truly weak and incapable, or do their entreaties to foreign governments and international agencies confirm what a Western writer dubbed the "Cambodian dependency syndrome"?
Lessons I learned
I left the Khmer national resistance 21 years ago this month, after nine years of struggle for rights and freedom. I spent nearly a decade working with Khmer nationalists to establish a government for the country of my birth that would serve its citizens well and respect their civil rights; rights about which I learned in high school, college, and graduate school. My belief in the inherent right of individuals to these freedoms has not waned, but I learned in the course of my activism that no outside influence can deliver to oppressed Khmers the rights and the freedom they so badly want; and that an outside force considers helping only if it sees potential in the Khmers and an ability to provide a honorable and credible alternative to the tyranny they oppose.
Please click here to read more...
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