2010/11/19. By John Teo
IT is hard not to be awed by Angkor Wat. As one approaches from a well-paved, tree-lined road, the iconic pagoda image that adorns the Cambodian flag hits you.
Then you marvel at the long perimeter sandstone moat separated from the road verge by a body of water the size of a river. A stone bridge the width of a good two-lane road leads to the fabled and hauntingly serene temple complex built deep in the jungle of the Southeast Asian landmass more than 800 years ago.
The endless canopied passageways are lined with intricate stone etchings from ancient Hindu folklore and period depictions of everyday life. Such was the intricacy involved that the carvings were incomplete even after nearly half a century of building work. The marked outlines on as yet uncarved stone are still visible today.
Contrast this marvel of ancient civilisation with the mindless butchery on display at Tuol Sleng, the nondescript school blocks off busy Street 103 in Phnom Penh, now a memorial to the 5,000 tortured and killed there of the two million said to have perished in Cambodia's Killing Fields. Pheap Pea, from the Cambodian Tourism Ministry, remarked that whereas in wars foreigners get killed, Tuol Sleng is a grim and graphic reminder of how Cambodians turned savagely on their own in the name of a twisted ideology.
One does not get the sense that ordinary Cambodians dwell much today on the tragedy that befell them a generation ago although it will be hard to imagine that if two million out of a total population then of just over 10 million were wiped out, few would have been left unscathed either directly or indirectly by it. No surprise then that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen would be loudly protesting in the presence of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the first batch of trials of the Khmer Rouge cadres implicated in the genocide will also be the last. Cambodia simply cannot afford the tens of millions of dollars spent prosecuting the cases, the prime minister argued. Hun Sen has a valid point. Although Western nations contributed the bulk of the trial expenses, Cambodia has to foot the shortfall.
It has been argued that Asean member-countries should be contributing. That these countries are not contributing points to the usual divide between Western and Asian priorities. Practical realities mean physical rebuilding of a country from the ravages of war and poverty is a more urgent necessity. It is noteworthy that Timor Leste President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta was recently mumbling that his country, too, cannot afford to revisit the atrocities of the era of Indonesian occupation. He obviously meant not just money. All signs are that Cambodia is picking up the pieces rather nicely. Heavy-duty Hummer vehicles and Lexuses crowd the streets of Phnom Penh together with tuk tuks, motorcycles and rickshaws. Modern banking halls, smart restaurants and expensive hotels are everywhere. There will be a stock market soon. Foreign airlines bring in tourists into the international airports in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap by the planeloads. The peace and political stability of Cambodia today are hard-won and precious. It only happened within the last half-dozen or so years. The economic dividends are plain to see. In many ways, Cambodia's recent political developments rather resemble ours; perhaps theirs slightly more tumultuous in the sense that we never had to go through a period of obvious paralysis as two co-prime ministers jostled for political control as Cambodia once did. The greatest thorn still pressing against Hun Sen today is perhaps the occasional pin-pricks from the political eccentric and exile Sam Rainsy, recently jailed by a Cambodian court after a trial in absentia. The royalist former co-prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh has quietly returned from exile to serve as official adviser to his half-brother, King Norodom Sihamoni. The main political show in town now centres around the machinations within the ruling Cambodian People's Party, controlled by the triumvirate of Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and Cheah Sim, whose posters are omnipresent in towns and villages across the nation. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was reportedly well-received by the Cambodian leader when he made his first visit as prime minister earlier in the year. Agreements have been reached for possible strategic tie-ups between the two countries in the areas of developing Cambodia's padi and rubber industries. The Cambodian government is reputedly stuffed with capable and foreign-trained technocrats. They have their work cut out for them. The economic success achieved thus far is still fairly narrowly based and has not significantly trickled down to the masses. Much more investments still need to be made to develop Cambodia's human capital and its infrastructure. There surely is no better guarantee that the horrors visited upon Cambodia by the murderous Khmer Rouge will not recur than by making real economic headway in uplifting the lives of impoverished Cambodians. The golden age that produced Angkor Wat may yet return.
IT is hard not to be awed by Angkor Wat. As one approaches from a well-paved, tree-lined road, the iconic pagoda image that adorns the Cambodian flag hits you.
Then you marvel at the long perimeter sandstone moat separated from the road verge by a body of water the size of a river. A stone bridge the width of a good two-lane road leads to the fabled and hauntingly serene temple complex built deep in the jungle of the Southeast Asian landmass more than 800 years ago.
The endless canopied passageways are lined with intricate stone etchings from ancient Hindu folklore and period depictions of everyday life. Such was the intricacy involved that the carvings were incomplete even after nearly half a century of building work. The marked outlines on as yet uncarved stone are still visible today.
Contrast this marvel of ancient civilisation with the mindless butchery on display at Tuol Sleng, the nondescript school blocks off busy Street 103 in Phnom Penh, now a memorial to the 5,000 tortured and killed there of the two million said to have perished in Cambodia's Killing Fields. Pheap Pea, from the Cambodian Tourism Ministry, remarked that whereas in wars foreigners get killed, Tuol Sleng is a grim and graphic reminder of how Cambodians turned savagely on their own in the name of a twisted ideology.
One does not get the sense that ordinary Cambodians dwell much today on the tragedy that befell them a generation ago although it will be hard to imagine that if two million out of a total population then of just over 10 million were wiped out, few would have been left unscathed either directly or indirectly by it. No surprise then that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen would be loudly protesting in the presence of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the first batch of trials of the Khmer Rouge cadres implicated in the genocide will also be the last. Cambodia simply cannot afford the tens of millions of dollars spent prosecuting the cases, the prime minister argued. Hun Sen has a valid point. Although Western nations contributed the bulk of the trial expenses, Cambodia has to foot the shortfall.
It has been argued that Asean member-countries should be contributing. That these countries are not contributing points to the usual divide between Western and Asian priorities. Practical realities mean physical rebuilding of a country from the ravages of war and poverty is a more urgent necessity. It is noteworthy that Timor Leste President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta was recently mumbling that his country, too, cannot afford to revisit the atrocities of the era of Indonesian occupation. He obviously meant not just money. All signs are that Cambodia is picking up the pieces rather nicely. Heavy-duty Hummer vehicles and Lexuses crowd the streets of Phnom Penh together with tuk tuks, motorcycles and rickshaws. Modern banking halls, smart restaurants and expensive hotels are everywhere. There will be a stock market soon. Foreign airlines bring in tourists into the international airports in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap by the planeloads. The peace and political stability of Cambodia today are hard-won and precious. It only happened within the last half-dozen or so years. The economic dividends are plain to see. In many ways, Cambodia's recent political developments rather resemble ours; perhaps theirs slightly more tumultuous in the sense that we never had to go through a period of obvious paralysis as two co-prime ministers jostled for political control as Cambodia once did. The greatest thorn still pressing against Hun Sen today is perhaps the occasional pin-pricks from the political eccentric and exile Sam Rainsy, recently jailed by a Cambodian court after a trial in absentia. The royalist former co-prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh has quietly returned from exile to serve as official adviser to his half-brother, King Norodom Sihamoni. The main political show in town now centres around the machinations within the ruling Cambodian People's Party, controlled by the triumvirate of Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and Cheah Sim, whose posters are omnipresent in towns and villages across the nation. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was reportedly well-received by the Cambodian leader when he made his first visit as prime minister earlier in the year. Agreements have been reached for possible strategic tie-ups between the two countries in the areas of developing Cambodia's padi and rubber industries. The Cambodian government is reputedly stuffed with capable and foreign-trained technocrats. They have their work cut out for them. The economic success achieved thus far is still fairly narrowly based and has not significantly trickled down to the masses. Much more investments still need to be made to develop Cambodia's human capital and its infrastructure. There surely is no better guarantee that the horrors visited upon Cambodia by the murderous Khmer Rouge will not recur than by making real economic headway in uplifting the lives of impoverished Cambodians. The golden age that produced Angkor Wat may yet return.
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