Reply by Allen Myers
Paul Keys (Write on, September 30) bases his criticisms of GLW's Cambodian reporting on unreliable sources.
First among these is Nate Thayer, mistakenly described by Keys as "renowned for his penetrative journalism". In fact, Thayer is renowned as the only journalist to whom Khmer Rouge leaders have always been willing to speak.
Thayer's reporting on Cambodia always relies heavily on the views of "observers". These observers are never further identified, but what they claim to be true is, almost invariably, what the US State Department would like to be true.
Thayer makes no secret of his hostility toward the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which he has opposed for years from the unmistakable standpoint of pro-imperialist anticommunism.
A second unreliable source was the media reports concerning "UN human rights investigators".
Keys is correct in saying that Helen Jarvis' article in issue #327 did not mention the allegation of "over 100 politically motivated disappearances and murders in the past year".
Perhaps Keys missed Jarvis' article in the previous issue, where she did report that "the United Nations Centre for Human Rights ... announced on the eve of the poll that it had been notified of 189 incidents of violence or intimidation, including 18 deaths ...". (Some news reports gave a figure of 140, rather than 189, incidents.)
Jarvis went on to point out: "These incidents are only reports. It is ... unclear how many will be confirmed, or how many were politically related, but that doesn't stop governments or media using the report to discredit the elections."
That her caveat was well founded was demonstrated on August 20, when the Cambodia Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that it had investigated more than 30 claimed political killings and found that "fewer than half a dozen of these may be politically motivated". (Emphasis added. See my article in GLW #331.)
Keys is incorrect when he says, "Green Left Weekly took the endorsement [of the Cambodian elections] by the Joint International Observer Group uncritically".
In fact, Jarvis' article noted that all observer groups — not only the JIOG but also the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, Volunteer Observers for the Cambodian Election, the European Union Presidency and even the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute — endorsed the conduct of the elections.
Against this unanimous view of people on the spot, Keys speaks of "stolen elections". This is simply to repeat the wild claims of the losers.
Finally and most seriously, Keys' equation of the CPP with the Indonesian, Malaysian and Burmese dictatorships is so wildly off the mark that one wonders whether we are talking about the same country.
The present government is, however, less favourable to the interests of ordinary Cambodians than was the government which was established after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge and which ruled until the UN-run elections of 1993. Corruption in particular increased after the arrival of the UN, though it is still not greater than is common in impoverished countries; before that, it was at levels that would not draw comment in most western democracies.
Before 1993, the CPP government had done an exemplary job of restoring Cambodian society despite a continuing civil war and international isolation. This government was replaced by a coalition between the CPP and a collection of pro-imperialist allies of the Khmer Rouge, notably including both Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy.
Not surprisingly, this coalition has not run smoothly; at times it has looked less like a coalition than a disguised form of low-intensity civil war.
While not excusing the behaviour of any CPP officials who engage in corrupt or undemocratic/repressive activity, the blame for the deterioration in the Cambodian political situation lies overwhelmingly with western imperialism and its local agents Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy. I fear that Paul Keys has allowed distorted and dishonest media coverage to conceal this reality from him.