Abstract
Cambodia today appears as a stable, emerging democracy with fast-developing and booming economy, which strides in education and health, as well as in the United Nations-sponsored trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, which are hallmark. The country thus seems to have come a long way since its 1969–1999 years of civil war and related brutalities.
In Hun Sen’s Cambodia, by the author Sebastian Strangio places responsibility for such change on the shoulders of Hun Sen, who has served as prime minister since 1985. However, Strangio, previously a Phnom Penh Post journalist, argues that though Hun Sen arguably was instrumental in establishing stability and economic growth for Cambodia, the democracy he has led is a mirage behind which patronage and authoritarianism have been the principal levers. Indeed, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has come to dominate both state and society making the country, in fact, ‘his’ Cambodia as Strangio’s title implies.
Strangio’s book first follows the historical ascent of Hun Sen over the country. It describes Cambodia’s long heritage of absolutism stretching back to the dawn of Cambodian history, the often-repressive rule by post-independence regimes, and how war tore the country apart. Yet though the author states that Hun Sen rose to become Deputy Commander of the Khmer Rouge’s Region 21, he provides no information about how the future prime minister served Pol Pot’s genocidal regime to achieve such rapid promotion.
The second half of the book shines spotlights on specific issues in contemporary Cambodia, including systematic human rights violations with legal impunity; an opaque, corrupt economy, which Strangio terms ‘Hunsenomics’; and the mega increase in forced land evictions of peasants to benefit Hun Sen cronies. Strangio also details how potential sources of political competition have been quelled, including the monarchy, opposition political parties, civil society, the media and even Cambodia’s monks. Though all of these issues have been examined separately in other studies, this is the first time that they have been looked at together in an analysis of the Hun Sen regime. Yet one issue that Strangio hardly touched upon was Hun Sen’s durable manipulation of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and other security units. Such an analysis would have been valuable in helping readers understand the manner in which the prime minister has been able to dominate security institutions of Cambodia.
Strangio does imply that Cambodia’s current variant of democracy was first driven by donors after 1992–1993 then twisted by Hun Sen to become an illusion of pluralism. Such an outcome was finally accepted by almost all parts of the international community, who simply came to look the other way. The exigencies of foreign investment, geopolitics and a desire to continue a presence in Cambodia propelled almost all international actors to prioritize Cambodia’s economic stability today over any dearth of democracy. Hun Sen masterfully caught on to this discrepancy.
As for any remaining external opposition, the author stresses that one of Hun Sen’s persistent critics have been Republican members of the US Congress such as Dana Rohrabacher as well as the International Republican Institute. Strangio appears to suggest that Rohrabacher is a proxy of anti-Hun Sen Khmer constituents in California and that he and his Republican colleagues have practiced a form of neo-imperialism by seeking to pressure Hun Sen from power. Yet Strangio must realize that these officials are merely discouraged by Hun Sen’s tendency to limit democracy and violate human rights—denials of pluralism that Strangio himself has emphasized. Strangio also states that when US President Barrack Obama visited Cambodia in 2012, he upset his host by lecturing Hun Sen about human rights violations. As a result, Strangio concludes, Obama’s trip ‘achieved nothing’ (p. 224). For human rights advocates, however, expressing opposition against repression is not ‘nothing’. What is wrong with translating human rights advocacy into public policy?
The author aptly relates China’s growing influence with Hun Sen in a changing Asian equilibrium. Through aid and trade, Beijing appears to be wrenching Phnom Penh into its orbit while Vietnam, Thailand and the United States are left behind. The book could have even more clearly detailed China’s economic pull: with statistics showing that China, including Hong Kong, controls 36 per cent of garment factories in Cambodia, more than any other country (GMAC, 2010, p. 12). With such influence, Strangio describes China as Cambodia’s ‘escape hatch from Western pressure’ (p. 226). However, Hun Sen actually has not become completely aligned with China just yet. Following Cambodia’s 2013 election (which Hun Sen barely won), China was slow to recognize the CPP’s victory. This prompted Hun Sen to push for closer relations with Vietnam (Hiebert & Nguyen, 2014). Strangio should have placed more stress on Hun Sen’s ability to play countries like China and Vietnam off of each other.
Turning to transitional justice, the book looks at the politics behind the evolution of the United Nations war crimes tribunal of former Khmer Rouge leaders, which Hun Sen reluctantly agreed to hold, but only under certain limitations. Interestingly, Strangio indicates that such reluctance owed to the fact that certain high-level Cambodian state officials had once worked for the Khmer Rouge and he mentions six Hun Sen loyalists. The tribunal, if not limited in agenda, might have prosecuted them as well. However, Strangio does not mention Hun Sen’s own possible fears of prosecution, given that he too had previously served the Khmer Rouge.
After describing Hun Sen’s years in power, the book, in the final chapter looks at the 2013 election. Describing Hun Sen as having ‘courted hubris’ (p. 261), Strangio notes that the prime minister barely scored a victory despite electoral irregularities (p. 258). Yet the fact that the CPP almost lost the election could be interpreted as disproving Strangio’s notion that Cambodian elections are merely a mirage of democracy. Actually, Strangio suggests that the CPP did win the election. Without a source, he states that though the opposition claimed victory, any ‘evidence that [the opposition] had won the election was never forthcoming’ (p. 262). However, an NGO’s report released in late 2013 found that where electoral irregularities did occur, the CPP saw a significant increase in its share of votes compared to the [opposition] (Meyn & Reaksmey, 2013). Strangio suggests (p. 263) that there should be an alternative to the xenophobic, anti-Vietnamese opposition—the Cambodian National Rescue Party. Yet a few pages later he declares that any change in Cambodia must come ‘from the Cambodian people themselves’ (p. 266). As such, he tells Cambodians what they should do first and later says that Cambodians should be left to make their own decisions.
Yet perhaps the most problematic part of this book is Strangio’s tendency to blame Cambodian culture for endemic difficulties that the country has endured. This is all the more odd because he mentions the ‘derisive’ views of French colonialists, who saw the Vietnamese as ‘the true dynamo of Indochina’ (p. 6) while implying that the Cambodians were lethargic. Yet Strangio, when describing Hun Sen’s use of ‘violence and patronage’, emphasizes that the prime minister has ruled ‘in the traditional Cambodian way’ (p. xiii). Without elaborating further, he goes on to say that Hun Sen manipulated Cambodian culture (p. xv). In his book’s final pages, Strangio writes that foreigners never succeeded in altering the mind-set of Cambodian leaders, that ‘Cambodian ways had a way of persisting’ (p. 265) and that Cambodian ‘culture continue[s] to exercise [an apparently negative] … gravitational pull’ (p. 266). Strangio’s allusion to Cambodian ways seems to imply that Cambodian culture is at least partly responsible for the country’s dire circumstances. Such an explanation is deterministic and without more elaboration from Strangio, readers are left wondering what he means.
Ultimately, Strangio’s book impressively marks a milestone in its research, prose, critical examination of the Hun Sen regime and use of numerous, revealing interviews. Though it would have helped if Strangio had been able to interview Hun Sen himself, he nevertheless offers a worthy analysis. However, this book would have been more valuable if Strangio had been able to glean even more critical information about Hun Sen. First, exactly what role did the young Hun Sen play under the Khmer Rouge and could this be a reason for his reticence in maintaining the Khmer Rouge tribunals? Second, exactly how does Hun Sen coordinate control over the inner workings of the CPP and the armed forces? Third, why has authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen persisted in using a democratic model for his nation (despite deficiencies)? Fourth, could Strangio elaborate more on the personal life of Hun Sen? Finally, after over three decades in power, what sustains the popularity of Hun Sen? Though obtaining the answers to these questions might be difficult, and publishing a book that directly addresses them would be impossible inside CPP-dominated Cambodia (Strangio resides in Phnom Penh), there is currently the need for the work, which looks at Hun Sen even more unflinchingly. Though Hun Sen’s Cambodia almost approximates such an opus, it unfortunately falls short in several aspects.