33 years following the Paris Peace Agreement, Cambodia and its peoples have really enjoyed what they have today, which is so far different from the past Khmer Rouge regime.
On October 23, 2024, we celebrate this historic day, bringing an end to internal disputes, restoring national unification, liberal mutli-party democracy with the promotion of human rights and a constitutional monarchy.
A record of today achievement has been derived from great merits and the first historic meeting between the Late King Father Norodom Sihanouk and Samdech Techo Hun Sen at FERE-EN-TARDENOIS on December 2-4, 1987 and the latter at SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, December 20-21, 1988 in the Republic of France.
Both national heroes put in enormous efforts to seek for national unity before the Paris Peace Agreement was signed on October 23, 1991 by the four parties in conflict and by the 19 signatory states.
After the 1993 election, those countries completed their mission while the Kingdom of Cambodia also became a sovereign state on the international fora as Mr. Jean David Levitte, former senior diplomat of French Foreign Ministry who was involved in the peace negotiation process for the protracted conflict in Cambodia mentioned during his visit to Cambodia in October 2016.
The same as what he highlighted in his statement, some opposition parties and civil societies should stop repeating the roles of the signatory countries.
Samdech Techo Hun Sen is the only peace founder, ensuring these heritages in particular the guarantee of peace which is the foundation of human rights and national development for the next generation and todays Samdech Thepadey Hun Manet is featured another key leader to navigate Cambodia at a remarkable progress.
Article 15 of the Paris Peace Agreement states that all persons in Cambodia and all Cambodian refugees and displaced persons shall enjoy the rights and freedoms embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights instruments.
These contents are also listed in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia in Chapter 3 on the Rights and Duties of Citizens (Articles 31 to 50), which stipulate five basic rights namely, civil rights, political rights, economic rights, social rights and cultural rights.
Article 31 of the Constitution states that The Kingdom of Cambodia recognizes and respects human rights as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all treaties and conventions related to human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights .” Khmer citizens are equal before the law, enjoying the same rights, liberties and duties regardless of race, color, sex, language, beliefs, religions, political tendencies, birth origin, social status, wealth or other situations. The exercise of such rights and liberties shall be in accordance with the law.
In this spirit, no one can reject this truth while all the rights of the Cambodian people are guaranteed by the Constitution under the shade of peace.
Yet, if we look at the war in Gaza, Mr. Didier Fassin, professor at Princeton and professor at a French secondary school said on October 13, 2024 that the Western world will have no more lessons on human rights to give to the rest of the world. (https: // f 24. My / AfFT ) .
Thank October 23 – Thank Peace!
Why Thank Peace?
The word “Thank Peace!” has been solemnly applauded by the Cambodian people both locally and externally, as well as the people of the world, and particularly in 2023, Mr. Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General has launched a phrase “New Agenda for Peace” outlining the vision of how the international community can prevent conflict and make peace more sustainably effective while the world is experiencing unprecedented and severe crises. According to the website of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on September 19, 2023, “New Agenda for Peace” focuses on five points as follows:
– in an increasingly fragmented world, we need to rebuild trust, solidarity and accountability. Platforms like the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and State Building (IDPS) can help;
– Supporting national ownership of prevention is more critical than ever;
– New solutions require a new voices at the decision-making table;
– inclusivity is paramount for peace to be achievable and sustainability ;
– Prevention Should be a universal goal for every country, not just those experiencing conflict.
Whether this vision is effective or the UN is a coward (l’ONU est un machin), the famous message of Mr. Charles De Gaule, former French president, spoke at a press conference on September 10, 1960.
Every year, the United Nations convenes the general assembly in New York where the heads of state, government, and foreign ministers take turns to deliver their respective speeches.
What did Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, say on September 27, 2024 during the time his country is at war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip and in the Middle East?
He strongly criticized the silence of the international community and blamed UN member states for not adequately condemning the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, which he considered a serious threat to regional peace. he alleged that this silence or neutral attitude of those UN member states is tantamount to a form of tolerance for terrorism, affecting global security and the security of Israel in particular.
The author really wonders why Benjamin Netanyahu dared to use these aggressive tones, blaming those participating countries and they just sat and quietly listened to his blames, or because Israel has a big brother ” the United States ” behind?
No one could really believes that the war between Israel and Hamas could erupt like this as Israel has only had peace for 50 years sharp since October 7, 1973. On October 7, 2023, half a century later, the war broke out while Israel citizens, especially youths, were celebrating its Independence Day, dancing in a confident atmosphere with an enjoyable holiday. Hamas arbitrarily and brutally killed Israeli youths, raped Israelii women, violently thrown babies and held many Israeli people hostage.
For more than two years, the war between Russia and Ukraine has erupted at the gates of Europe, bringing about the unity of the 27 EU member states since the flames of war have spreaded next to its countries and the war will surely spread to their homes if no solution is in place.
We are currently unaware of when the abovementioned conflict can come into an end and how far it will spread out, and whether or not World War III will materialize. No one can foresee the future clearly but what we see right now is that there exists a genuine peace, a hard-won peace through enormous and innumerable sacrifices to be absolutely maintained.
Thank Peace!
The views of individuals with ill-intent, or those who did not experience the great catastrophe occurring in Cambodia in the 20th century, along with those who publicly express their disapproval and criticize the appreciation of peace, claiming that Cambodia has been at peace since the late 1998, reflects a sentiment much like the Khmer proverb which goes:
“For lovers, even river water tastes sweet; For haters, even sugarcane is sour.”

The instigators of the demonstration made it clear that their ultimate goal was to overthrow the government by undermining the economy, stoking class anger, hatred against the rich, government officials and the armed forces, ultranationalism, racial discrimination, all of which are extremist ideologies, which do not differ from the ideology of Pol Pot.

They also did not hide their intention to provoke violence and they have no will to restrict their protesters from violence. They wanted to exacerbate the situation to the like of Bangladesh’s case, which for them amounted to rekindling the hopes of a Colour Revolution that they had always desired.

However, the vicious attempts to destroy the peace of the entire nation for their reckless political ambitions were thwarted as the Royal Government and the armed forces had prevented in a timely manner their ill-will through peaceful means and restrained efforts to explain with the utmost patience, but at the same time they were also well prepared with absolute determination should the situation turns into the worst-case scenario.

Drawing from this event, we can draw some of the following implications:

First, the 17 million Cambodians still resort to peace and tranquility.

Although some people still have questions about the cooperation framework of the CLV-DTA because they love their motherland, they do not agree to the provocation of social unrest that destroys the well-being of the whole nation, that eventually would lead to the loss of tourists and investors whom are much needed for their livelihood as well as the country’s economic development.

They have clearly seen that after the demonstrations that toppled the Bangladeshi government, many investors fled the country because everyone knows that no one is going to invest millions of dollars in a country without security and safety. And no tourist wants to go on an adventure with the sound of bullets and at the risk of their own lives.

Second, the strong unity of the armed forces in defending the national territory, peace and the constitutional government that had emerged from the elections.

In fact, the accusation regarding the loss of four provinces (Ratanakkiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie and Stung Treng) is an insult to the Royal Government, to the people living in those four provinces, but what is most serious is a direct insult to the armed forces who are the border guards. These troops find such accusation unacceptable when they have to patrol the border, day and night, rain and shine, even if they have to be away from their families for the task of defending the motherland.

They are true patriots who dare to sacrifice their lives to protect the territory of Cambodia. For them, it is really painful when they try to explain the truth on the ground, but some people still do not believe them and instead pin their belief on imaginative people who have never stepped foot on the border area.

Third, do not underestimate the supporting force for the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).

Civil servants, business people and the general public who love and support CPP believe in the leadership capability and unwavering patriotic conscience of the CPP leaders, who always stand in solidarity with the people and dare to sacrifice their lives to protect the national territory. CPP’s supporters are also true patriots and none of the CPP members are willing to lose Cambodian territory.

Members of the CPP are the true patriots who are willing to die for their own motherland. CPP members are always mature and possess great level of patience, even if they are sometimes insulted as “unthinking followers”. This is because they have clearly understood the great conscience of the leaders of the Royal Government and the CPP who are extremely loyal to the motherland, always stay and is willing to die in the motherland and are always willing to stay with the people through good and bad times. They do not respond with anger to the point of destroying Cambodia’s peace, destroying the reputation of the Cambodian people, which foreigners can despise for that the Khmer people is always quarrelling with each other from domestic to overseas.

But the opposition must not underestimate the strength and willpower of the CPP supporters, as the Khmer saying that goes, “kheugn klar krap thar klar sampeah” or literally means “don’t ever look at the lying tiger as a bowing tiger.”

Fourth, never expect that the 2013 events will happen again.

Internal national unity is the strongest deterrent to the Colour Revolution, especially the unity of the armed forces. The armed forces have a duty to protect the legitimate government born out of elections and have a duty to protect the security of the people throughout the entire country.

The Royal Government and the armed forces cannot stand idle when a handful of individuals are willing to divide the nation, cause insecurity, the loss of peace and stability. If a nation is at war, the government and the armed forces are responsible for the lives of the whole 17 million people, so enforcing the law against those who act against the law is a customary practice in strengthening the rule of law for the sake of nationwide peace. No question asked.

The armed forces had already had bitter experiences in 2013, when the concept of Colour Revolution was still unknown in Cambodia. But for now, don’t expect an event like 2013 to happen again.

Fifth, fake news is a poison and a virus that kills society.

When the explanation has been given by those who have been involved in the real works for decades, but people still don’t believe it and place their trust in those influencers who have never worked or never put their foot in the border zone, this means that fake news is actually devastating for society. The vicious influencers have absolutely no professional experience and their accusations were purely imaginative.

This is a great danger for the society.

Fake news can divide a country and cause insecurity. Such danger is also a threat to other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where fake news had provoked racist movement and vandalism. Indeed, the British government has every right to use iron fists to disperse anti-social groups. This is an extremely complex challenge that governments around the world are struggling to tackle.

Therefore, based on the arguments above, the messages that the author considers most important are twofold. First, the events of August 18 show that the Cambodian people chose peace and tranquility and were not deceived by the opposition, which is ready to destroy the entire nation for its political ambitions. Second, don’t expect an attempted Color Revolution to happen again like it did in 2013.

Sim Vireak expressed his own voice as a civil servant and a Cambodian citizen living in Cambodia

Source: khmertimeskh

What do we call a cliché? It is an expression repeated in the same terms very often to the point of becoming a banal truth accepted by all and therefore undisputable.

The press systematically hostile to Cambodia – essentially the Western press – makes abundant use of clichés. Its goal is to pass off tendentious information as indisputable truths. We will provide several examples and demonstrate to what extent these are unilateral assertions intended to impose a negative image of Cambodia.

The oldest of the clichés concerns Samdech Hun Sen whose name was, for more than forty years, automatically followed by the words “former Khmer Rouge” when “officer” or ” KR leader” was sometimes added. This was of course a matter of assimilating the Cambodian leader to the killers of Pol Pot. However, no serious historian – even those who have been the most critical of the policies led by Mr. Hun Sen – has ever maintained that he was ever involved in the crimes of Democratic Kampuchea. During the 1980s, when Mr. Hun Sen was the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, the American secret services spent years finding reasons to smear him. And they found nothing. Not even enough to invent a fake criminal.

Three examples illustrate the extent to which, when it comes to Cambodia, the parable of the mote and the beam applies to the Western press.

First, another cliché applied to Samdech Hun Sen was to emphasize his longevity at the head of the Cambodian government (38 years). First, they forget that when he became Prime Minister in January 1985, he was the youngest head of government in the world. It is also forgotten that Mr. Hun Sen exercised responsibilities under three different regimes: the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (until 1989), the State of Cambodia (until 1993) and the Kingdom of Cambodia (since 1993). Above all, it is to forget that he is by far not the only political leader to have held high responsibilities for several decades. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapore, was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1990, and then Senior Minister and Minister Mentor until 2011. A total of 52 years! This longevity was never criticized by those who spit on Mr. Hun Sen. Other leaders have also had exceptional longevity without ever arousing the hostile moods of an international press accustomed to double standards: Mohamad Mahathir, Malaysia (24 years), Jawaharlal Nehru, India (16 years), Indira Gandhi, India (15 years), Konrad Adenauer, Germany (14 years), Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel (14 years to date) …

The second example concerns the political system of Cambodia which is that of a constitutional monarchy. But there are foreign observers who regularly deplore – another cliché – that HM the King has no power. It is forgetting or, rather, pretending to forget that as in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, or the United Kingdom, according to the principals of public law, “the King reigns and does not govern”. But, nevertheless, representatives of these countries do not miss any opportunity to deplore the lack of power of the King of Cambodia. What is the constitutional feature in their own country should see different treatment in Cambodia.

A third cliché emerged when it became certain that HE Dr. Hun Manet would succeed his father as head of the government of Cambodia. It has become a habit to talk about nepotism, or even “monarchical drift”. As if the so-called democratic models had never seen sons or daughters succeed their fathers. Isn’t George Walker Bush, president of the USA from 2001 to 2009, the son of George Herbert Bush, president from 1989 to 1993? In India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister, was none other than the daughter of a previous Prime Minister, the famous Jawaharlal Nehru. Isn’t the current Prime Minister of Singapore, HE Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, the son of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew? And, in many European countries, how many political figures are there who have extended their father’s commitment? To take only Belgium, the Eyskens, father and son, were Prime Minister, and the current Belgian Prime Minister is none other than the son of a prominent Flemish politician of Belgium. The current President of the European Council is pursuing a brilliant political career like his father. Examples abound in Europe which are never the subject of the harsh remarks made when it comes to Cambodia. Why does what is accepted in the West become open to criticism when it comes to Cambodia?

After being treated during the eighties of the past century as a “vassal state” of Vietnam, then during the nineties as a “state sold” to Thailand, for the past ten years, Cambodia has been qualified as a “client state” of China. These clichés, repeated tirelessly, are only intended, of course, to give Cambodia a negative image whose leaders are sold to the power of the moment. Of course, a Western press will never remind us that “without the Vietnamese, all the Cambodians would have died”, as SM Norodom Sihanouk recognized in 1991.A Western press will never recognize the overwhelming responsibility of rich countries in the isolation of the survivors of the Pol Pot regime who could only count on help from Vietnam to prevent the return of Pol Pot to power. Western journalists paid to denigrate Cambodia will never emphasize what Cambodia owes to the countries that participated in its reconstruction and today in its development. Because these countries are mainly in Asia.

All these clichés reflect at best a mediocre level of information, at worst a systematic desire for denigration. They provide, from a press that is fertile when it comes to giving lessons, the most mediocre examples of what journalism is.

by Dr. Raoul M. Jennar

The Guardian said its article was amended on 6 October 2021.

“An earlier version incorrectly said that the Cambodian leader, Hun Sen, was among those who had received a Cypriot passport.”

“Some members of the Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s inner circle, were discovered to have been among the thousands of non-Europeans who received a Cypriot passport,” according to the latest version.

Koy Kuong, secretary of state and spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cambodia, sent a letter to Katherine Viner, Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, asking for clarification.

“I am writing to get clarification from you concerning an online article titled: [Law firm founded by Cypriot President accused of hiding assets of Russian exile] published on 3 October 2021 and written by Luke Harding and Helena Smith. One paragraph of the article says: [In addition to Russian Oligarchs and Saudi potentials, the Cambodian Leader, Hun Sen, was discovered to have been among the thousands of non-Europeans who received a Cypriot passport.] This is a grossly false and unacceptable claim,” according to the letter seen by Fresh News on Thursday.