 |
| Image, www.khmertimes.kh.com |
By Khmer Wathanakam
www.khmerwathanak.blogspot.com
 |
| Hong Sok Hour being arrested, Khmer Times |
Over the past several weeks political atmosphere has heated up into a boiling point when Hun Sen has continued his witch hunt, throwing opposition activists into jail without concrete evidences and proper legal procedure. Whenever he feels threatened or feared of losing his wielding power, he reacted in bellicose behavior, ordering his established security forces and court to quickly arrest and imprison the opposition member mercilessly. What Hun Sen has behaved in the past few weeks has clearly indicated that he is still a man with violent-prone nature. Culture of dialogue with the opposition has never changed him to be a new man, but his violent nature has overwhelmed the culture of dialogue. Tiger and lion used to eat meat as their daily meal, can't eat grass to replace meat. A tiger can't be patient to wear a sheep skin for too long since it doesn't comfort as its own natural skin. In the same way, Hun Sen can't act like a saint or Bodhisattva when he has heavy kalesa and tonaha of power and personal ambition. His craving of power and personal pride have deprived other people of their basic personal freedom of living and expression. The latest arrest of the opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour in a quick and intimidated way, accusing him of treason when he has actually sacrificed his energy and effort to defend and protect the interest of the country has perturbed many Cambodian people inside and outside the country. Throughout social media, many people expressed their angers on the arrest, others felt frustrated and hated Cambodian society and its leader, and while the others felt unfortunate and dismayed to be born and raised under such a repressive regime. However, some people including the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy still showed their resilience and optimistic that the current political heat up would be cooled down in someday. After arrival at Phnom Penh Air Port from his long trip abroad, Sam Rainsy claimed that his top priority was to secure all his party's activists from jail including senator Hong Sok Hour. After arriving at home, he has hurried to visit his activists in Prey Sar Prison. Despite all the activists requested him not to exchange their release for political concession with Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy perhaps doesn't have much leverage as he did before joining the parliament on July 22, 2015 to negotiate with Hun Sen beside using his personal relationship with him and reviewing a political solution that both parties had signed on July 22, 2014 to officially end the post-election crisis.
Recently Sam Rainsy was criticized by some people for being irresponsible and escaping the country when Hun Sen jailed 11 CNRP's activists and ordered to arrest more. But CNRP's official Mr. Eng Chai Earng, explained that Sam Rainsy just traveled abroad as his usual schedule even if he stayed in the country, he could not do anything to secure those activists. Based on this explanation, Sam Rainsy is more unlikely to have much leverage left to negotiate with Hun Sen for the release of his party's activists. Nonetheless, Sam Rainsy still has confidence that he would use his cordial and cool method to deal with Hun Sen unrelated to the culture of dialogue since it is the long term strategy and relationship with CPP. But now he has to search for all possible means to persuade and convince Hun Sen for his activists' release based on previous political agreement. Because both public and most political observers have seen these cases as political, and it can be solved by negotiation between the two leaders though the CPP and Hun Sen insisted that they could not interfere with a so-called independent court system in which Hun Sen usually uses as a tool to jail his opponents on his wills. Sam Rainsy himself had experienced in dealing with this flagrant court system under Hun Sen's decision for many occasions over the past 20 years, so he may still has some optimistic to solve this problem with Hun Sen fruitfully, but it may consume more times and more political concession have to offered by CNRP. As Mr. Sok Eysan, a CPP's spokesman, indicated, " if Sam Rainsy wants to live in harmony with the CPP, he has to tell his party's officials and activists to do the same." Hun Sen used to claim that the CNRP has two kinds actor: the friendly actors and the mean actors.
