Will Sihanouk testify in Khmer Rouge trial?

Ta Mok, a name so familiar to a generation of Cambodians, died in Phnom Penh in the early hours of Friday, July 21, 2006. In detention since his capture in 1999, the much feared, one-legged Khmer Rouge military commander died in a military hospital of complications resulting from a long history of high blood pressure, respiratory illness, cardio-vascular problems and tuberculosis.

While there were those who mourned his death, there were arguably legions who were both truly disappointed and deeply frustrated that Ta Mok had taken along with him, to the hereafter, many dark secrets of the 3 years, 8 months and 20 days of the dreaded Khmer Rouge (KR) regime.

His untimely but not unexpected death is without doubt a great loss to the forthcoming Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT). He could surely have shed at least some light as to why the KR did what they did to their own people and what unfortunate alignment of the planets motivated their frenzied attempt to reinvent Cambodia and why that dreaded exercise went so dreadfully wrong.

Ta Mok is not the only one to have cheated the KRT of its very limited number of primary sources. The man accused of being most responsible for the crimes, Pol Pot, Brother No 1, died unceremoniously in suspicious circumstances on 15 April 1998 - at a time when Ta Mok had wrested control of the KR from him.

The loss now of such a critical witness like Ta Mok should sound the clarion call to both the UN and the Cambodian Government that the KRT should not be delayed any longer and that every resource ought to be marshalled to accelerate the tribunal process.

Apart from possible deaths of the remaining ageing KR leaders, there is also residual fear in certain circles that some, if not most of them, who live and move freely in Cambodia, may quietly disappear from the country before the trial proper begins early next year. This is not an unlikely event.

Media reports last month, for example, that former head of state Khieu Samphan "had packed up his pickup truck in the middle of the night and left town", quickly gained currency and raised anxiety among those who continue to harbour doubts about the KRT.

A subsequent explanation that Khieu Samphan was merely transporting a bed to his son's house killed further international media interest of the incident but failed to assuage the doubts of the cynics.

Viewed in this context of diminishing primary witnesses, the July 15 offer of former King Norodom Sihanouk, now referred to as Father King, to testify at the KRT tribunal, makes fascinating reading and is truly intriguing.

He declared on his website that he did not lack the courage to appear before the KRT and again pointedly reminded everyone, "My family, my wife's family and many people who supported Norodom Sihanouk were tortured and killed by Khmer Rouge Pol Pot."

Will Sihanouk testify? It would be difficult for Sihanouk not to steal the limelight should he appear at the KRT. Even his worst detractors will grudgingly admit that Sihanouk is an extremely astute politician who has been intimately involved with developments in his country for the last half a century. He is both enigmatic and extraordinary. He also knows how to capture attention.

An important point to note here is the firm belief in some quarters that Sihanouk is very serious and that his was not a frivolous offer. Sihanouk is a man of history and as he looks back at his colourful and eventful life, he may perhaps pause to admit that one of the most universally misunderstood and most trying periods of his life was the period of the KR when he, Queen Mother Norodom Monineath and present King Norodom Sihamoni ended up as virtual prisoners in the palace.

It is entirely possible, or so the belief goes, that Sihanouk, in his sunset years, will view the KRT, despite his previous criticism of it, as possibly one of the very few remaining vehicles to put across his side of the story of the period for future generations of Cambodians and for the international community.

There is a view that as he is no more King and since constraints are fewer, he will be more forthright at the KRT. This is not being fair to Sihanouk. His track record here is clear. Even when he was King and there were numerous constraints, he never lacked in forthrightness.

On the contrary, what has always been uppermost in the minds of those who knew him, both friends and detractors alike, was that no one was ever too sure what Sihanouk would say. Even some of those who genuinely admire him admit that Sihanouk is indeed unpredictable and fearless - undoubtedly a potent combination.

Others have described him differently. The highly respected political commentator Milton Osborne titled his book on Sihanouk, Prince of Darkness, Prince of Light.

In a review of the book, the equally respected Martin Stuart-Fox disagreed with that reference. He gently chided, "The title is an extravagant one. Sihanouk is neither a Prince of Darkness nor a Prince of Light. Such cosmological/eschatological overtones as these titles convey should not cloud our judgment. What Milton Osborne actually presents us with in this thoughtful and revealing book is a leader whose flaws of character contributed in no small measure to his country's tragic history."

There will be those who will disagree with that observation about Sihanouk but will wholeheartedly accept that the real tragedy of Cambodia was the Khmer Rouge.

Given this, although Sihanouk is not required to appear before the KRT, and ultimately may not, there is no denying that should he do so, his contributions would be invaluable.

There is equally no denying that should he appear, there could well be understandable anxiety among some individuals and within some capitals.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4831

Ah Ha !

Words of Poverty

Those of us who live and work outside the increasing nanny state safety net that are the western countries do so at our own risk, life can be rough and tough out here in the third world.

In the where ? The where, what did you say ?? Stage-cue: much foaming and frothing at the mouth from those 4x4 driving ladies whot lunch…

Oops, there I go again, thoughtlessly and cruelly, choosing my own words; a crime that will one day bring the sandal-wearing NGO thought police crashing through my mosquito screen door for that 6AM visit; armed to the teeth with vegan sausages and lentil-breath.

The expression third world country usually means an underdeveloped one. What would first world and second world countries be, and how did the designations come about?

These expressions were born in the Cold War era. Because of their numbering, it would be reasonable to assume that they were coined in that order, or at least all at once.

However, third world came first, and the other two phrases, designators, were actually created later.

Third world was coined in French (le tiers monde) by the population expert Alfred Sauvy, to refer to those poorer countries, especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia, which were aligned with neither the communist nor the capitalist blocs.

It originally appeared in an article in L’Observateur on 14 August 1952: “Ce Tiers-Monde, ignoré, exploité, méprisé comme le Tiers-État” (“That Third World, ignored, exploited, scorned, like the Third Estate).

He created it with reference to a famous pamphlet by the Abbé Sieyès in January 1789 about the Third Estate, le Tiers-État, one of the classes in the Estates-General, a pamphlet that was influential in the lead-up to the French Revolution later that year. The Third Estate was the commons or the ordinary people, the First Estate being the clergy and the Second Estate the nobility (the English term Fourth Estate, the press, came from this classification by analogy some decades later).

Third world was taken up in translation by economists and politicians in Britain and the United States in the early 1960s. By analogy, first world and second world were later coined from it in English, being recorded respectively in print in 1967 and 1974.

The former was a collective term for the developed countries that were based on a capitalist model of high-income market economies, of which the UK, Europe and even the USA are principal examples. This was contrasted with the second world, the relatively high-income Communist countries or those with centrally planned economies in which the government owned the means of production; here obviously the USSR was the prime example.

Neither term was as widely used as third world; both have lost popularity since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 except in historical contexts, though the phrase first world countries for the industrialised nations is still in fairly common usage.

As most third-world countries were poor or relatively undeveloped, the term has since shifted in sense somewhat to refer especially to countries with those characteristics, though the formal term for them has progressively became euphemised by the terminally politically correct to developing countries and later on to less economically developed countries.

More recently however, the Über politically correct inform me that they have changed the terminology again, we are supposed to now refer to such countries collectively as ‘The South’ the south? The south of what?? The Southern hemisphere??? Bet that will impress Japan, Australia and New Zealand…

Honestly, it is enough to make a gecko laugh.

Nice to see the millions of dollars of tax funded foreign aid are being well spent on rewording words and are not being squandered on such trivial items as feeding the hungry. Nice to see the root causes of poverty being examined and understood; with action being taken to combat them. Nice to see those that drive 4x4 Toyota Landcruisers are earning their nice fat salaries.