I believe that King Sihamoni currently is merely a rubber stamp king, to say it bluntly": Cambodian expat from Lowell

(Photo: RFA)

Cambodian expats’ opinion on the King’s role

14 May 2009
By San Suwidh
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

On the occasion of the national holiday celebrating the 56th birthday of King Norodom Sihamoni between 13 to 15 May, San Suwidh is reporting about the opinion of a number of Cambodian expatriates regarding the role of the current king of Cambodia.

King Sihamoni is the son of King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Monineath Sihanouk. He was born in Phnom Penh of 14 May 1953, i.e. 6 months ahead of Cambodia’s access to independence from France.

During his youth, the prince liked to study dance, music and theater. In 1971, he received an award in his competition in classical dance at the Prague national conservatory of music and dance, in communist Czechoslovakia. Between 1976 and 1979, he was detained by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime along with his parents and his younger brother, Prince Norindrapong.

Following his release from the killing fields, he completed several functions involving art, mainly in France. The king is expert in language. He speaks Cambodian, French, Czech and English. While living in Paris in 1993, he directed two films involving ballet: “Soben” (Dream) and “Theat Taing Buon” (The 4 matters).

On 14 October 2004, at the age of 51, he was selected by the council of the throne as the king of Cambodia.

It has been 5 years since the king acceded to the throne. On the day of his crowning, he swore that he will abide by his father’s teaching, and he publicly announced: “What must be remembered forever is pure nationalism. We must clearly avoid all sorts of corruption, and at all time. Everything that we must apply should be aimed at serving the supreme interest, the livelihood of the Khmer nation and people.”

He also announced openly that: “I will be close to all our compatriots, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, children, nephews, all of you, and I will share your fate forever.”

On the occasion of his 56th birthday, various government officials sent him warm well wishes. Cheam Yeap, a member of the CPP permanent committee and chairman of the National Assembly committee on finance and economy, praised the role of the king, saying: “He has very good opinion, he never embarrass the people, the government or the legislative branch. He always smoothed out the difficult tasks of the government, as well as those of the legislative branch and the judiciary branch.”

Nevertheless, a large number of Cambodians do not know very well their king. Even though he publicly claimed that the palace will not hide anything, and he is spending several days each week to serve his compatriots and meeting the people, in the past 5 years, the king is still unknown to his subjects. More seriously is the fact that Cambodian expatriates have negative opinions of the king.

Sim Huot, a Cambodian-American living in Stockton, California who claims to be a true royalist, is still puzzled about the king’s role: “When the king ascended to the throne, he promised to the people that he will work hard and pay attention to the people in general, he will absolutely oppose corruption, he will labor for his land, such as the border issue for example. But I don’t know what he is doing or not doing. On the border issue, I keep on hearing this issue discussed on Radio Free Asia which I listen to and the people are shouting about corruption, about forced evictions, did the king strongly intervene on these cases? When he ascended to the throne, he promised that he will follow his father’s footstep and he will absolutely oppose all forms of corruption.”

Sieng Sak, a former KR who currently lives in Lowell, Massachusetts, blamed the constitution which ties the king’s hands and does not allow him to do anything. Sieng Sak said: “I believe that King Sihamoni currently is merely a rubber stamp king, to say it bluntly. This is one issue. The second issue, based on the current feelings of Cambodians who respect the king, what King Sihamoni is doing is just enough to calm down Cambodians who want to have a monarchy only, but when speaking about serving the interest of the country, serving the country future peace, he did not do anything about them. The reason I am saying he is not doing anything on these issues is because the constitution is tying him up already, he reigns but he does not rule, so he has no power, he cannot represent anything, he cannot be anybody’s shade simply because he has no power.”

In reply to Sim Huot’s question above regarding the king’s interventions to help his subjects or not, Princess Ang Duon Nim Sophine said: “Regarding the king, it’s not that he is not doing anything to protect his subjects, but it is as if he is under some intense pressure, he is being under intense pressure. What he needs to do, he must ask the authorization from the prime minister. The constitution stipulates that the king has the power to pardon people on certain occasions, such as during the Pchum Ben ceremony, during his birthday, so he must use this prerogative, but I heard that when he asked the authorization [from the PM], they rejected his request. Whatever he tried, he couldn’t do it.”

In the midst of these opinions on the king’s role, Cambodian people are sending wishes to their king on his birthday which happens to be a 3-day holiday also.

Cambodian-American teenager killed in Lowell was an 'innocent bystander'

She was an 'innocent bystander'

Lawrence mom tries to cope with shooting death of daughter shot in head

May 15, 2009
By Bill Kirk
bkirk@eagletribune.com
The Eagle Tribune (Massachusetts, USA)

LAWRENCE — Sophal Choeun spoke quietly as she leafed through a family photo album that contained pictures of her dead daughter and her other children.


"I pray to God they find who did this to my daughter," said Choeun, 45, a Cambodian immigrant who lives with her three other children and mother on the second floor of an Abbott Street multifamily house.

Her daughter, Tavaryna Choeun, 17, a Lawrence High School dropout with a history of running away from home, died yesterday in the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, where she was brought Tuesday night after she was shot once in the head in Lowell.

Police said Choeun was an "innocent bystander" — shot while riding in the front passenger seat of a car with a male friend driving and a female friend in the back seat.

No arrests were made as of last night. Authorities said they believe they know who the shooter is.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said yesterday the driver and shooter, who are gang-affiliated, had an altercation earlier in the day, but the shooting was not gang-related.

Leone said a car pulled up alongside them and someone fired several shots, hitting Choeun once in the head. No one else was injured.

He said Choeun's two friends then dumped her body onto Suffolk Street in Lowell, where a passer-by saw her and called police.

Corey Welford, a spokesman for Leone, said police found Choeun on the street in front of 132 Suffolk St. at 10:14 p.m.

Choeun moved to Lowell to live with her 20-year-old boyfriend several months ago.

Leone said the driver and the other female passenger were interviewed, and that it was not known why they didn't take her to a hospital or call 911.

"I'll go see her in Boston today," said Choeun's mother, her other children and mother sitting by her side on a couch in the living room of their apartment at 184 Abbott St.

Choeun said her daughter had never been in trouble, and Lawrence police Chief John Romero confirmed yesterday that the girl had never been arrested in Lawrence.

The victim's sister, Maryanne Choeun, 18, said Tavaryna had dropped out of high school in her freshman year and had run away from home several times. She recently ran away from her foster home in Lawrence and had been living with her 20-year-old boyfriend in Lowell.

Tavaryna's father lives in California and is traveling in Cambodia, said Maryanne Choeun, adding that she hasn't seen her father in years and that he was unaware of his daughter's death.

Aside from her father, mother and sister Maryanne, Tavaryna has a younger sister, Susan, 16, and brother, Peter, 7, and grandmother, Chy.

Visitors to Cambodia down

May 15, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

The number of foreign tourists visiting Cambodia dropped in the first quarter of 2009 as the global economic crisis cuts the number of people travelling.

Visitors from South Korea and Japan are down sharply.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Ell Lavy, Siem Reap tuk tuk driver; Dr Thong Khon, Cambodian Minister for Tourism

Click here to listen to the English audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: Leave the famous jungle temple - known as Ta Phrom - outside Cambodia's tourism capital of Siem Reap and - as you can hear - you are surrounded by vendors selling cold drinks, musical instruments and postcards. Cambodia has relied for a decade on the expanding tourist trade as one of its pillars for economic growth. A record 2.1 million people visited the country last year.
So the news that tourism numbers have dropped in the first quarter of 2009 from the same period last year is not good. Overall the number is down just three and a half percent to 622,000 which is better than the government had feared. But the headline figure tells only one part of the story. Tourists from richer countries such as Japan and South Korea have dropped by a third, with short-term visitors from neighbouring Vietnam making up the numbers.

And that is why tourism worker Ell Lavy - a 25-year-old driver of a motorised rickshaw around the temples of Angkor Wat - has seen his monthly earnings drop from one hundred US dollars to just seventy. Previously he would get two or three tourists a week - now he is lucky to have one.

LAVY: You know last year when I recommend them to another place they say no problem for them. But this year when I invite them to somewhere they say they that no - they have no money to pay everything. [CARMICHAEL: So you have noticed they are spending less money, and there are less tourists?] Yes, less tourists also.

CARMICHAEL: Government figures show the number of visitors from South Korea and Japan, which last year provided the largest and third-largest number of foreign visitors respectively, dropped by one-third to around 100,000 in the first quarter of this year.

Gregory Anderson is the general manager of the upmarket Le Meridien Angkor hotel in Siem Reap. He has noticed there are fewer Japanese tourists in town, and says occupancy rates are down 20 percent for Siem Reap's upmarket hotels. He blames the global economic situation, as well as political volatility in Thailand and an ongoing border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.

So in the face of lower spending on travel and tourism in the current global downturn, what can Cambodia do to boost visitor numbers? Tourism Minister Dr Thong Khon says he is targeting countries that are less affected by the global slump. And he is optimistic that 2009 could yet prove better than last year. But he says Cambodia is not helped by problems in Thailand.

KHON: Because you know Thailand is a main gate to Cambodia. Thirty three percent of total arrivals to Cambodia come from Thailand by air, by water, by land. When Thailand is affected, so it affects Cambodia too.

CARMICHAEL: To minimize that problem, the ministry is trying to boost short-haul flights from within the ten-member ASEAN nation and China, Japan and South Korea. Cambodia has already scrapped visa requirements for nationals within a number of ASEAN states. And he says the private sector must work to make the country more attractive - including using discounts for hotels and restaurants.

But making Cambodia more attractive isn't helped by the trickle of reported crimes against foreign tourists, some of them serious. The most high-profile was that a friend of Britain's Princess Eugenie had her handbag stolen in Phnom Penh recently. What does he think of the incident?

KHON: In Cambodia the whole country is completely safe and secure. But the thing that happened is not everywhere. Sometimes like this or like that. But the case of the princess - we checked with the police, we checked everywhere - they have no information. If the case really happened, why did they not report it to the police?

CARMICHAEL: Dr Thong Khon says the global crisis has seen Cambodia downgrade its estimate of tourist arrivals for 2015 by around one-fifth to 4 million visitors. So what message will he take to the region to try and boost visitor numbers?

KHON: Many tourists come to stay in home-stay, in the countryside, on some islands, for one month, for two weeks with the family. From Scandinavia, from Australia. They come from everywhere. No problem. Come. Come to stay in Cambodia.