LTO Cambodia: Sam Rainsy at Freedom Park

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Sam Rainsy at Freedom Park

The CNRP (Cambodia National Rescue Party) held a large gathering today at the Freedom Park in Phnom Penh with Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha in attendance. This was the largest gathering of the CNRP in Phnom Penh since the pre-election campaign period. In the lead up to the gathering it was variously referred to as a meeting, a rally, a gathering to express gratitude and a protest by various sources. At least some of the international press seems to have settled on the word 'protest,' but to me it felt far less like a protest than a rally of sorts, with an atmosphere akin to a campaign event. Though there was plenty of party regalia in evidence (flags, stickers, hats, etc.) there were no protest chants, signs or placards. Both Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha spoke, thanking their supporters and making various points about the party platform, the election, the alleged election irregularities, and the party's complaints, intentions and plans for protests, etc. Articles in the international press (link, link, link) have done a better job of explaining what was said than I could do here. Reported estimates of the crowd size varies between varies between 5000 and 15,000. It would be difficult for me to give an accurate estimate from my vantage within the crowd, but it was likely closer to the middle/upper end of the reported estimates. The atmosphere, like all CNRP events that I have attended to date, was happy, positive and energetic, though perhaps somewhat less exuberant than the campaign period.

Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha arrive at the rally.

Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy

The crowd

At the back of the crowd

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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.