Latest news with #NorodomSihanouk
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hun Sen urges ICJ intervention in Cambodia-Thailand border row, warns of Gaza-like conflict
PHNOM PENH, June 3 — Former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for a resolution of the long-standing border dispute with Thailand through the International Court of Justice (ICJ), warning that continued inaction could lead to a conflict resembling the Gaza Strip. Speaking at a joint session of Cambodia's Senate and National Assembly commissions on Sunday, Hun Sen also declared the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding between the two nations 'no longer applicable' due to the lack of progress over 25 years, according to a report in The Nation. He stressed that Cambodia had made a courteous invitation for Thailand to jointly submit the case to the ICJ, hoping for a diplomatic and peaceful resolution. 'Cambodia will not violate the territory of other nations,' he said, adding that the country is merely seeking to protect borders inherited from the French colonial era and preserved under King Norodom Sihanouk. He revealed that recent clashes along the border had resulted in the death of a Cambodian soldier, further heightening the urgency of resolving the issue. Hun Sen warned that if violence were to escalate, Cambodia would immediately appeal to the United Nations Security Council for intervention. During the same session, the joint commission unanimously backed the government's plan to bring the dispute before the World Court. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Manet reaffirmed the government's determination to proceed with the ICJ case, regardless of whether Thailand agrees to participate. He also called on all Cambodian politicians and the public to support the armed forces, as talks under the Joint Boundary Commission continue.
The Star
17-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Pochentong Airport to be preserved as ‘historically significant site', says Cambodian president Hun Manet
PHNOM PENH (Phnom Penh Post/ANN): The uncertainty surrounding the future of Phnom Penh International Airport has been resolved, with Prime Minister Hun Manet confirming that neither he nor former Prime Minister Hun Sen ever planned to sell the airport to private companies. Instead, it will remain state property and serve the public interest. As he addressed celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the formation of the National Police on the morning of May 16, Manet clarified that the 'old', commonly known as Pochentong Airport by Cambodians, will not be sold. The State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) will continue to manage the airport after it closed to commercial flights, most likely on July 10. He emphasised that preserving the site is important due to its historical significance and the benefits it provides to all Cambodians, particularly Phnom Penh residents. Manet noted that after flight operations are transferred to the new Techo International Airport, the existing infrastructure at Pochentong will be maintained, under the legal ownership of the state. According to the book 'Norodom Sihanouk: Sangkum Reastr Niyum, the General Development of Cambodia in the 1960s', Cambodian civil aviation effectively began in 1954, one year after the Kingdom gained independence from France. At that time, only two airports existed: Pochentong and Siem Reap. In 1956, Royal Air Cambodge was established, with regular flights from both airports. Initially, Pochentong Airport featured a 1,800 metre concrete runway, but this was later extended to 3,000 metres. By 1961, large aircraft like DC-8s, TU-104s, Convair 990s, Electras and Caravelles began landing there. The site features a 3,000 metre concrete runway, and has served as a major gateway to the Kingdom since the 1950s. - Phniom Penh Post/ANN The SSCA reported that Pochentong was upgraded to Pochentong International Station, with construction starting in December 1956, at a cost of 134.4 million riel. It was funded by the French and Cambodian governments, with additional subsidies from other sources. The scene of heavy fighting and regular rocket attacks during the Cambodian Civil War, the facility served as a lifeline for critical supplies during the siege of Phnom Penh. The final flight took place on April 10, 1975, just seven days before the city fell to the Khmer Rouge. During the despotic rule of Pol Pot, it saw limited activity, with only the occasional arrival from Beijing or Pyongyang. The airport was officially renamed Phnom Penh International Airport in January 2003. Chhang Youk, Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), explained that the 70-year-old airport is one of the legacies of the late King Farther Norodom Sihanouk's Sangkum Reastr Niyum era and is a national heritage site. It witnessed multiple eras, from war and genocide to peace and development. 'The airport should be preserved as national property. Part of it should host an exhibition on its history, symbolising Cambodia's rise from colonialism and genocide to revival,' he said. 'Millions of Cambodians have passed through here and know it as Pochentong, despite changes in appearance or name,' he added. Youk emphasised that even as Cambodia moves forward, such heritage grows more valuable, as it serves as a testament for future generations to understand the nation's revival. He encouraged a permanent photo exhibition at the airport, incorporating available documents and testimonies from living witnesses familiar with its history. He believed this would attract both local and international visitors. 'Many elderly people who worked or passed through here, including former Khmer Rouge members, are still alive. Collecting their stories for display would be ideal. If we delay, they may pass away, and we'd lose these vital witnesses to history,' he continued. Pending final approval, the airport will cease commercial operations on July 10, with all flights redirected to the new Techo International Airport, approximately 35 kilometres away. -Phnom Penh Post/ANN
Asia Times
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
50 years later, Khmer Rouge's murderous legacy lives on
On April 17, 1975, tanks rolled into the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to cheering crowds who believed that the country's long civil war might finally be over. But what followed was one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. During a brutal four-year rule, the communist-nationalist ideologues of the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.6 million and 3 million people through executions, forced labor and starvation. It represented a quarter of the country's population at the time. Fifty years on, the Khmer Rouge's legacy continues to shape Cambodia – politically, socially, economically and emotionally. It's etched into every Cambodian's bones – including mine. Photo of author's parents in Cambodia, taken in late 1960s. Photo: Sophal Ear, CC BY I write this not just as an academic or observer but as a survivor. My father died under the Khmer Rouge, succumbing to dysentery and malnutrition after being forced to work in a labor camp. My mother pretended to be Vietnamese to save our family. She escaped Cambodia with five children in 1976, crossing through Vietnam before reaching France in 1978 and finally the United States in 1985. We were among the lucky ones. Today, Cambodia is physically unrecognizable from the bombed-out fields and empty cities of the 1970s. Phnom Penh gleams with high-rises and luxury malls. And yet beneath the glitter, the past endures – often in silence, sometimes in cynical exploitation. The Khmer Rouge came to power on a wave of disillusionment, corruption, civil war and rural resentment. Years of American bombing, the 1970 US-backed coup that ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and the subsequent deeply unpopular U.S.-aligned military regime set the stage for the Khmer Rouge's rise. A convoy of vehicles commandeered by the victorious Khmer Rouge drives through Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Photo: Roland Neveu / LightRocket via Getty Images / The Conversation Many Cambodians, particularly in the countryside, welcomed the Khmer Rouge, with its mix of hard-line communist ideology and extreme Cambodian nationalism, as liberators who promised to restore order and dignity. But for the next four years, the Khmer Rouge, under feared leader Pol Pot, brought terror to the nation through ideological purges, forced labor, racial genocide of minority groups and policies that brought widespread famine. People digging a water canal under the guard of an armed Khmer Rouge soldier in 1976. Photo: AFP via Getty Images / The Conversation The regime fell in 1979, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge leadership, installing a new, pro-Hanoi government. But its shadows remain. The now ruling Cambodian People's Party, in power for over four decades, has justified its grip on the country through the trauma of the genocide. 'Peace and stability' have become mantras used to squash dissent. Every sham election becomes a referendum not just on policy but on avoiding a return to war. Critics of Cambodia's rulers are framed as threats to peace and unity. Opposition parties have been dissolved, activists jailed, media muzzled. This political culture of fear draws directly from the Khmer Rouge playbook – minus the overt violence. The trauma inflicted by that regime taught people to distrust one another, to keep quiet, to survive by keeping their heads down. That impulse still shapes public life. The Khmer Rouge tribunal – officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – was supposed to bring closure. It has brought some. But it took decades to begin, cost over US$300 million and convicted only three senior Khmer Rouge leaders over the 1975–79 genocide. Many mid- and lower-level perpetrators walk free, some are still in government positions, some neighbors to survivors. For a nation where the majority of the population was born after 1979, there remains a glaring gap in education and public reckoning over the Khmer Rouge's atrocities. Cambodia's school curriculum still struggles to teach this period adequately. For many young people, it's something their parents don't talk about and the state prefers to frame selectively. In raw numbers, Cambodia's economic progress over the past two decades has been impressive. GDP growth averaged around 7% annually before the Covid-19 pandemic. Cities have expanded, and investment – especially from China – has flooded in. One of Phnom Penh's high-end malls. Photo: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images / The Conversation But much of this growth is precarious. Cambodia's economy remains dependent on garment exports, tourism and construction. This leaves it vulnerable to external shocks, such as the Trump administration's imposition of 49% tariffs on Cambodian goods, now temporarily paused. Instead of building a resilient, diversified economy, Cambodia has relied on relationships – with China for investment, with the US for markets – without investing enough in its own human capital. That, too, I believe, is a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, which destroyed the country's intellectual and professional classes. The psychological toll of genocide doesn't disappear with time. Survivors carry the scars in their bodies and minds. But so do their children and grandchildren. Studies in postgenocide Cambodia have shown elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among survivors and their descendants, resulting in intergenerational trauma. There are not nearly enough mental health services in the country. Trauma is often dealt with privately, through silence or resilience rather than therapy. Buddhism, the country's dominant religion, offers rituals for healing, reincarnation and forgiveness. But this isn't a substitute for systemic mental health infrastructure. Worse, in recent years, even the memory of the genocide has been politicized. Some leaders use it as a tool to silence dissent. Others co-opt it for nationalist narratives. There's little room for honest, critical reflection. Some independent initiatives, such as intergenerational dialogue programs and digital archives, have tried to fill the gap but face limited support. This is, I believe, a second tragedy. A country cannot truly move forward if it cannot speak freely about its past. A tourist looks at portraits of victims of the Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, formerly a Khmer Rouge torture center known as S-21. Photo: Tang Chhin Southy/AFP via Getty Images / The Conversation April 17 is not a national holiday in Cambodia. There are no official commemorations. The government doesn't encourage remembrance of the day Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. But to my mind, it should. Not to reopen wounds, but to remind Cambodians why justice, democracy and dignity matter. The danger isn't that Cambodia will return to the days of the Khmer Rouge. The danger is that it becomes a place where history is manipulated, where authoritarianism is justified as stability and where development is allowed to paper over injustice. As the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's rise, Cambodia must, I believe, reckon with this uncomfortable truth: The regime may be long gone, but its legacy lives on in the institutions, behaviors and fears that continue to shape Cambodia today. When I look back, I think of my father – whom I never knew. I think of my mother, who risked everything to save us. And I think of the millions of Cambodians who live with memories they cannot forget and the young Cambodians who deserve to know the full truth. My life has been shaped by what happened on April 17, 1975. But that story isn't mine alone. It belongs to Cambodia – and it's still being written. Sophal Ear is associate professor in the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cambodia's haunted present: 50 years after Khmer Rouge's rise, murderous legacy looms large
On April 17, 1975, tanks rolled into the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to cheering crowds who believed that the country's long civil war might finally be over. But what followed was one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. During a brutal four-year rule, the communist-nationalist ideologues of the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.6 million and 3 million people through executions, forced labor and starvation. It represented a quarter of the country's population at the time. Fifty years on, the Khmer Rouge's legacy continues to shape Cambodia – politically, socially, economically and emotionally. It's etched into every Cambodian's bones – including mine. I write this not just as an academic or observer but as a survivor. My father died under the Khmer Rouge, succumbing to dysentery and malnutrition after being forced to work in a labor camp. My mother pretended to be Vietnamese to save our family. She escaped Cambodia with five children in 1976, crossing through Vietnam before reaching France in 1978 and finally the United States in 1985. We were among the lucky ones. Today, Cambodia is physically unrecognizable from the bombed-out fields and empty cities of the 1970s. Phnom Penh gleams with high-rises and luxury malls. And yet beneath the glitter, the past endures – often in silence, sometimes in cynical exploitation. The Khmer Rouge came to power on a wave of disillusionment, corruption, civil war and rural resentment. Years of American bombing, the 1970 U.S.-backed coup that ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and the subsequent deeply unpopular U.S.-aligned military regime set the stage for the Khmer Rouge's rise. Many Cambodians, particularly in the countryside, welcomed the Khmer Rouge, with its mix of hard-line communist ideology and extreme Cambodian nationalism, as liberators who promised to restore order and dignity. But for the next four years, the Khmer Rouge, under feared leader Pol Pot, brought terror to the nation through ideological purges, forced labor, racial genocide of minority groups and policies that brought widespread famine. The regime fell in 1979, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge leadership, installing a new, pro-Hanoi government. But its shadows remain. The now ruling Cambodian People's Party, in power for over four decades, has justified its grip on the country through the trauma of the genocide. 'Peace and stability' have become mantras used to squash dissent. Every sham election becomes a referendum not just on policy but on avoiding a return to war. Critics of Cambodia's rulers are framed as threats to peace and unity. Opposition parties have been dissolved, activists jailed, media muzzled. This political culture of fear draws directly from the Khmer Rouge playbook – minus the overt violence. The trauma inflicted by that regime taught people to distrust one another, to keep quiet, to survive by keeping their heads down. That impulse still shapes public life. The Khmer Rouge tribunal – officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – was supposed to bring closure. It has brought some. But it took decades to begin, cost over US$300 million and convicted only three senior Khmer Rouge leaders over the 1975–79 genocide. Many mid- and lower-level perpetrators walk free, some are still in government positions, some neighbors to survivors. For a nation where the majority of the population was born after 1979, there remains a glaring gap in education and public reckoning over the Khmer Rouge's atrocities. Cambodia's school curriculum still struggles to teach this period adequately. For many young people, it's something their parents don't talk about and the state prefers to frame selectively. In raw numbers, Cambodia's economic progress over the past two decades has been impressive. GDP growth averaged around 7% annually before the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities have expanded, and investment – especially from China – has flooded in. But much of this growth is precarious. Cambodia's economy remains dependent on garment exports, tourism and construction. This leaves it vulnerable to external shocks, such as the Trump administration's imposition of 49% tariffs on Cambodian goods, now temporarily paused. Instead of building a resilient, diversified economy, Cambodia has relied on relationships – with China for investment, with the U.S. for markets – without investing enough in its own human capital. That, too, I believe, is a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, which destroyed the country's intellectual and professional classes. The psychological toll of genocide doesn't disappear with time. Survivors carry the scars in their bodies and minds. But so do their children and grandchildren. Studies in postgenocide Cambodia have shown elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among survivors and their descendants, resulting in intergenerational trauma. There are not nearly enough mental health services in the country. Trauma is often dealt with privately, through silence or resilience rather than therapy. Buddhism, the country's dominant religion, offers rituals for healing, reincarnation and forgiveness. But this isn't a substitute for systemic mental health infrastructure. Worse, in recent years, even the memory of the genocide has been politicized. Some leaders use it as a tool to silence dissent. Others co-opt it for nationalist narratives. There's little room for honest, critical reflection. Some independent initiatives, such as intergenerational dialogue programs and digital archives, have tried to fill the gap but face limited support. This is, I believe, a second tragedy. A country cannot truly move forward if it cannot speak freely about its past. April 17 is not a national holiday in Cambodia. There are no official commemorations. The government doesn't encourage remembrance of the day Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. But to my mind, it should. Not to reopen wounds, but to remind Cambodians why justice, democracy and dignity matter. The danger isn't that Cambodia will return to the days of the Khmer Rouge. The danger is that it becomes a place where history is manipulated, where authoritarianism is justified as stability and where development is allowed to paper over injustice. As the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's rise, Cambodia must, I believe, reckon with this uncomfortable truth: The regime may be long gone, but its legacy lives on in the institutions, behaviors and fears that continue to shape Cambodia today. When I look back, I think of my father – whom I never knew. I think of my mother, who risked everything to save us. And I think of the millions of Cambodians who live with memories they cannot forget, and the young Cambodians who deserve to know the full truth. My life has been shaped by what happened on April 17, 1975. But that story isn't mine alone. It belongs to Cambodia – and it's still being written. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sophal Ear, Arizona State University Read more: Henry Kissinger's bombing campaign likely killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians − and set path for the ravages of the Khmer Rouge Cambodia PM Hun Sen will shut down opposition on election day – even if he can no longer threaten voters on Facebook Bearing witness to Cambodia's horror, 20 years after Pol Pot's death Sophal Ear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
