King_All-72 - The Cambodia Daily

2
His Majesty’s Birthday
Our Best Birthday Wishes for Good Health and Happiness to
Samdach Ta Norodom Sihanouk
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Our Sincerest Congratulation
To His Majesty King
Norodom Sihamoni,
On His Royal Coronation
Our Warmest Congratulations
To Samdech Ta Norodom Sihanouk,
Father of Independence,
On the Occasion of His 84th Birthday
From The Management & Staff of:
313 Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Tel: 855-23 426 288, Fax: 855-23 426 392, E-mail: luxury@hotelcambodiana.com.kh
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A Special Supplement to hTe CAMBODIA DAILY
3
THE MEDIA-CONSCIOUS MONARCH
A Master At Crafting His—And His Nation’s—Public Image
By Michelle Vachon
ong before today’s mediablitz election campaigns and
photogenic presidents, the
leader of a small Southeast Asian
nation was capturing far more than
his fair share of international media
attention.
Retired King Norodom Sihanouk, who is celebrating his 84th
birthday today, embarked on his
first press campaign more than half
a century ago.
In the decades since, the retired
King has grown adept at using the
media to reach the public and influence politics in Cambodia and
abroad.
Well-informed on what the
media is saying on any and all
Cambodian issues, Norodom Sihanouk swiftly responds, these days
mostly in writing.
Receiving faxes of newspaper
pages with handwritten comments
in the margins from Norodom
Sihanouk are a regular occurrence
today at newspaper offices.
As journalists who have had
their word choice or phrasing in a
story scrutinized can attest, the
retired King’s open comments,
which can be harshly critical or
sometimes playfully congratulatory, create between him and the
press a very direct relationship.
Unlike modern-day political leaders whose media relations consist
of official spokespeople issuing
press releases and official communiques, Norodom Sihanouk’s dealings with the press have been and
L
still are very involved.
“His Majesty had a lot of time for
the press: He built strong, long-lasting relationships with ‘journos’ like
Bernie Krisher, Nayan Chanda,
William Shawcross, Jean Lacouture and others,” said Julio
Jeldres, the retired King’s official
biographer.
“His 5-hour long press conferences in Peking, Pyongyang or in
Phnom Penh before the 18 March
[coup ousting him in 1970] were
legendary,” Jeldres said.
In this regard, Norodom Sihanouk was ahead of his time, said
Alain Daniel, who served as the
retired King’s private secretary in
the late 1960s as part of an agreement with the French government.
“At the time, it was not customary [for political leaders] to pay so
much attention to the press and to
the international press,” he said.
“[Norodom Sihanouk] recognized before many others the fundamental importance of what today
we call ‘image’. Now there are
media consultants with the technical expertise to create an image for
a certain kind of product—there
are techniques used to launch
products. He had realized before
anyone else that a country was also
in a way a product, and that the
image Cambodia projected abroad
was something vital,” Daniel said.
Cambodia often attracted attention because of its messenger, as
former New York Times correspondent Henry Kamm mentions
in his 1998 book “Cambodia,
Report from a Stricken Land.”
Cover: A framed photo of retired King Norodom Sihanouk and
Queen Monineath displayed in the Royal Palace
Top Right: In this 1967 television interview, Norodom Sihanouk
alleges that China is trying to impose communism in Cambodia
Photo: Courtesy of Cambodian Audiovisual Resource Center/French National Audiovisual Institute
Bottom Left: Norodom Sihanouk talks to journalists after a 1981
meeting with French diplomats in Paris about the difficulties of a
peace settlement for Cambodia
Photo: Courtesy of Cambodian Audiovisual Resource Center/French National Audiovisual Institute
Recalling his first meeting with
Norodom Sihanouk at a press
luncheon in 1964, Kamm wrote: “I
asked one or two [questions], not
because of a deep interest in Cambodia, terra incognita to me, but
because I had found its chief of
state a national leader unlike any I
had ever met.”
During that informal talk, Kamm
recalls, “He blurted out with disregard for conventional hypocrisy
truths that statesmen are supposed
to keep for themselves.... Moreover, he dwelt on his country’s
weakness rather than praising pretended strength.”
Eleven years earlier, Norodom
Sihanouk had turned to the media
in his quest for Cambodia’s independence from France.
After a visit to Paris in 1953
where his request had not been
taken seriously, he later pleaded
his cause in a Radio-Canada interview in Montreal, and in a New
York Times interview in Washington, DC.
Soon thereafter, those interviews
prompted a Washington Post editorial in support of Norodom
Sihanouk’s cause, writes Milton
Osborne in his 1994 book “Sihanouk, Prince of Light, Prince of
Darkness.”
The 30-year-old King was “already aware of the power of the
Western press to affect governmental opinion,” Osborne writes.
And shortly after those interviews,
France invited Norodom Sihanouk’s representatives in Paris to
discuss independence.
Over the years, media coverage
would not always be so favorable,
and Norodom Sihanouk would
never take criticism lightly.
In April, he threatened to sue
Phnom Penh’s French-language
monthly magazine L’Echo du
Cambodge for reprinting excerpts
from a negative review of one of his
feature films that was first published in 1971 in the French daily
Le Monde.
The 1969 film “Ombres sur
Angkor” had been about an alleged
plot by the US Central Intelligence
Agency to topple Norodom
Sihanouk.
L’Echo du Cambodge immediately apologized, and the retired
King did not pursue legal action.
“His Majesty’s relations with the
press were sometimes tense because he used to reply to every article that was presented to him and
that he felt did not convey an accurate picture of Cambodia or of his
own actions and policies,” Jeldres
said.
“Sometimes the newspapers to
which His Majesty wrote did not
publish his responses, and this created some tension in the relationship, which was otherwise very
healthy,” he added.
In the mid-1960s, Norodom Sihanouk’s relations with the foreign
and national media deteriorated.
“On 11 September 1967, [then]
Prince Sihanouk decreed the suppression of all newspapers appearing in Cambodia and their replacement with four daily newspapers in
Khmer, French, Chinese and
Vietnamese languages put under
the control of the Ministry of
Information,” wrote the late
Charles Meyer in his 1971 book
“Derriere le sourire khmer,” or
“Behind the Khmer Smile.”
Moreover, with the exception of
a few journalists known to print official statements without comment,
Norodom Sihanouk closed Cambodia’s doors to the foreign press,
Continued on page 14
OCTOBER 31, 2006
4
His Majesty’s Birthday
The management and staff of
Nagacorp & Ariston Sdn Bhd
extend their best wishes for long life,
good health and happiness
to His Majesty
Norodom Sihanouk
on the occasion of His 84th Birthday
Level 5, North Tower, Naga World, Hun Sen Park, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1099, Phnom Penh. Tel: + 855-23-723986 Fax: + 855-23-426627
5
WATCHING BETWEEN THE FRAMES
The Retired King’s Films May Be More Message Than Medium
By Erika Kinetz
And Kay Kimsong
long, dreamy epoch of Technicolor peasants, Mercedes sedans, pastoral North
Korean lakes, and a beautiful queen came
to an end in late September: “My cinema, it is
dead,” retired King Norodom Sihanouk wrote in
a letter from Beijing that was posted on his Web
site.
Norodom Sihanouk has, of course, said this
before and he may well say it again. While the
retired King’s filmmaking career, which spans
four decades, may or may not be dead, for the
moment, the distribution of his films is. In that
same missive from Beijing, he asked state-run
TVK to stop broadcasting his films, a request the
station has said it would honor.
And so begins the afterlife of the retired King’s
films. He has written and directed dozens of films,
many of which he also scored. He often cast himself, family members and public dignitaries in
starring roles. Norodom Sihanouk has written
that he made the films with fervor and love for his
homeland and his people, but these days, it’s
quite difficult to find them in Cambodia. After he
retired in 2004, Norodom Sihanouk moved his
personal film archive to the Ecole Francaise
d’Extreme-Orient in Paris and to Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia.
The films were never meant to be for sale, yet
like many things in Cambodia, they are anyway.
The few copies that do circulate in markets
around Phnom Penh have been pirated from foreign diplomats who received them as gifts, or
from members of the Royal Family, according to
You Sokunthy, whose DVD stall at Phsar Tuol
Tumpoung is one of the few places that you can
find them. Today, the films, most of which were
created for Khmer audiences, are perhaps most
ardently pursued by curio-seeking tourists.
The tourist market, some say, is where culture
goes to die. This shift has ripped the Royal films
from their original context, and the resulting dissonance, to foreign eyes, is either incomprehensible or, more often than not, funny.
“People laugh,” said Ly Daravuth, the director
of the Reyum Institute. “They say how kitsch.
[Norodom] Sihanouk does not care. He is in
another artistic tradition.”
Understood as statecraft, the films offer a fantastical counterpart to Cambodia’s bleak modern
history. And they are, perhaps, one part of the
dream-life of Norodom Sihanouk, a record of
how he wanted to see his nation, how he entertained himself, and how he sought to relate to his
people.
A
“I think the King Father’s films are messages to
his beloved children and his people,” said Prince
Sisowath Kola Chat, secretary of state for the
Ministry of Culture. “The films will be a useful
documentary for the future.”
You Sokunthy, 35, who has been selling DVDs
since 1992, has captured the niche market for the
retired King’s films. She said she likes the films
because they are emanations of Khmer culture.
“The dress and the action show the identity of the
Khmer people,” she said. Her grandmother loved
them.
“The old generation really liked the King’s
movies,” she said. “When they played on TV, they
watched with their mouths open, without blinking their eyes.”
Tastes have changed. Most Cambodians who
come to her shop buy cartoons for their children,
with the hope that “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,”
and “Cinderella” might teach them some
English. Cambodian teenagers, she said, prefer
Samurai movies, Korean films, ghost stories, and
martial arts movies.
It is tourists who make her dig deep into the
back of her cabinets, searching for evidence of
the retired King’s cinema. She sells 20 to 30
copies of his movies each month. They cost $4
each, twice the price of “The Killing Fields” and
Rithy Panh’s “S21, The Khmer Rouge Killing
Machine,” which fly off her shelves by the hundreds.
Part of the issue is what Ly Daravuth, calls
“deferred modernity.” The French had their New
Wave, and the Americans had the actor and
improvisational director John Cassavettes.
Cambodia, meanwhile, had war.
“Here you are only starting to have Cubism,”
Ly Daravuth said.
Norodom Sihanouk’s films, then, belong to an
older order. He first began experimenting with
Top Left: The opening of Kompong Cham
province’s Preah Sihamoni Theater
featuring Norodom Sihanouk’s film
“The Little Prince” on July 20, 1968
Photo: Courtesy of the Reyum Institute
Top Center: Norodom Sihanouk greets an
enthusiastic spectator at the premiere of
his film “The Little Prince” on July 6,
1968. The photo appeared in Kambuja
magazine on August 15, 1968
Photo: Courtesy of the National Library of Cambodia
Top Right: Norodom Sihanouk during the
shooting of his film “Angkor in
Darkness,” produced in 1967
Photo: Courtesy of the Reyum Institute
filmmaking in the 1940s, and in 1966 made his
first feature film, “Apsara.”
“[Norodom] Sihanouk was having a discourse
of building an independent, proud nation,” said
Ly Daravuth. Part of that proud nation turned out
to be a cadre of filmmakers—Roeum Sophon
and Ieu Pannakar among them—who grew up
around Norodom Sihanouk, according to “Cultures of Independence,” a book on Cambodian
arts and culture published by Reyum.
“The culture was a tool for him,” said Ly
Daravuth. “There is always a link between art
and state ideology.”
According to the Reyum book, the other major
school of Cambodian filmmakers at the time was
funded and trained by the US government, which
during the Cold War maintained an ambitious
program of cultural diplomacy. The US Information Service shot documentaries in Cambodia in
the 1950s and sent mobile “cinecars” through the
countryside, projecting films that showed the
wholesome American way.
USIS trained Cambodians to make Khmer-language films for these village screenings. Sun Bun
Ly, a policeman who went on to form Cambodia’s
first independent, commercial film production
company, Neak Poan Productions, was among
them. So was Nhek Dim, who USIS sent in the
early 1960s to the Walt Disney studios to learn
cartooning.
Norodom Sihanouk founded Cambodia’s first
international film festival in 1968; that year and the
next, his films won the grand prize—a pure gold
statue of an Apsara dancer. In 1997, the
International Film Festival of Moscow honored
him with a special jury prize.
In general, however, his filmmaking efforts
have been met with limited international critical
acclaim. And aesthetics alone may not offer the
right lens for judgement.
“If you ask me to look at the films from a purely art critic perspective, it would be a difficult reading,” Ly Daravuth said. “But I’ve only looked at
them as historical films.”
The retired King has said that he never intended his films to be commercial undertakings.
In 1997, he told the International Film Festival
of Moscow that the budgets for his films ranged
from $20,000 to $70,000 and were financed by the
Cambodian government. They were to be of the
people and for the people, with free screenings
and regular broadcasts on state TV. Even today,
Prince Sisowath Kola Chat said copies of the films
would be provided free of charge to anyone who
needs them.
Continued on page 14
OCTOBER 31, 2006
6
His Majesty’s Birthday
The retired King
sings backed by
Huot Thea in this
image taken from
a video of the
performance
BACKING THE ROYAL BALLADEER
His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk’s Violinist Is a King Among Fiddlers
By Erik Wasson
And Prak Chan Thul
e looked familiar. I was eating pork and
ginger with white rice at Phnom Penh’s
Lucky Bright Restaurant and realized that
I had seen the violin player before. Then it hit me:
Huot Thea is in King Father Norodom Sihanouk’s band.
“It has been good for my career,” the 41-yearold violinist said after one of his regular performances at Lucky Bright.
People, he says, often recognize him from his
performances with the King Father.
Cambodia’s multi-talented retired King is
known not only as a prolific filmmaker but also as
an energetic singer and talented songwriter.
Norodom Sihanouk’s legendary palace
soirees have always included him singing live
before diplomats and dignitaries, featuring such
Western classics as “Feelings” and “Lambada,”
as well as much-loved songs by Cambodia’s late
Sin Sisamuth.
Sin Sisamuth’s “Sekong,” “Why Do You Cry
When I Sing?” and “Last Year,” are still wildly popular among young and old Cambodians and are
included in the retired King’s repertoire.
Norodom Sihanouk’s band often includes his
half-brother Prince Norodom Sirivuddh on guitar
and Minister of Culture Prince Sisowath Panara
Sirivuddh on saxophone.
When a violin is required, as it often is, Huot
Thea is called for.
“My father played for the King and I have
known him since I was a boy. I work at the
Ministry of Culture also so when they need me,
they contact me there,” Huot Thea says, adding
that he is also a dab hand at the maracas.
“We played together for a meeting of provincial
governors in September, before the King Father
left for Beijing,” Huot Thea says.
Norodom Sihanouk has been singing publicly
at the palace in Phnom Penh on occasion since
the early 1990s following the country’s turn to
Heng Chivoan
H
democracy and his return from exile in China.
Huot Thea says he has performed with the
retired king countless times since then.
“With the King Father I learned a lot of new
songs especially in French and Spanish that I
never would have had a chance to learn,” he says.
Sometimes the band’s practice sessions can go
on for a very long time, Huot Thea says, because
Norodom Sihanouk is a perfectionist and has the
energy of a much younger man.
“I have never seen a person that age that can
sing that much and remember that much,” he
said. “When we played for diplomats, it went on
until four in the morning. I went to the toilet two
or three times, but the King Father never stopped
to take a break.”
US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, who has
attended some of the retired King’s performances, said of the singing: “I wish I had had as much
stamina at 24 as the King Father still has at 84.”
Huot Thea said of all the songs the retired King
sings, his personal favorite is “Monique,” which is
about the King Father’s love for the Queen.
Most nights, however, Huot Thea can be found
leading his Lucky Bright Band at Lucky Bright
restaurant on Norodom Boulevard, where he
plays for a clientele of largely well-to-do Cambodians and government officials.
But Huot Thea has also entertained some very
different customers.
A master of the traditional Khmer two-stringed
instrument called the tro, Huot Thea as a teenager was conscripted to play for Khmer Rouge soldiers during the 1975-1979 Democratic
Kampuchea regime.
“During the Khmer Rouge regime, I also
played.... I was still young so I never thought
about politics. I would play when they camped at
the pagoda,” he said. “That is life—you have to
adjust to the new regime.”
But those days are long gone, Huot Thea said.
Life is better playing with the retired King.
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
A Special Supplement to The CAMBODIA DAILY
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wish Your Majesty Norodom Sihanouk
a joyous 84th birthday and many, many more
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7
Heng Chivoan
The retired King greeting
well-wishers at Phnom Penh
International Airport May 26
A LION IN WINTER?—ROYAL YEAR IN REVIEW
By Douglas Gillison
ive hundred and ninety-seven
days into his retirement, former King Norodom Sihanouk
landed at Phnom Penh International
Airport in the afternoon of May 26.
After a 16-month absence, the
retired King was greeted by more
than 100 government officials, foreign diplomats, and Prime Minister
Hun Sen.
The 83-year-old ex-monarch, a
seminal figure in the history of
Cambodia, waved to reporters but
said nothing before stepping into a
car with the Queen Mother, Norodom Monineath, and driving off.
“He would like to have come back
a long time ago but he did not feel
OK to return because some people
criticized him,” Prince Norodom
Youvaneath, one of the retired
King’s sons, told reporters at the airport.
In statements made during the
months prior to his return, Norodom Sihanouk said alternately that
fear of political upheaval and also his
failing health had prevented him
from returning home.
In January, however, he said his
elongated absence was in fact due to
the painful memory of anti-Sihanoukist propaganda, broadcast the
previous October on Cambodian tel-
F
evision stations at the request of
Hun Sen.
Frustrated that King Norodom
Sihamoni was unavailable to sign off
on a controversial new border treaty
with Vietnam, Hun Sen ordered TV
and radio stations to play Lon Nolera songs that accused Sihanouk of
ceding land to Cambodia’s larger
neighbor.
“The fact that the new generation
publicized the song made me...
[remember] the abasement against
me,” Norodom Sihanouk wrote in a
message posted to his Web site at
the time.
However, seven days after his
return in May, Norodom Sihanouk,
during a banquet at the Royal Palace
in Phnom Penh, described the
prime minister as his own son and a
“new hero of Cambodia.”
“King Norodom Sihamoni and I
both support Samdech Hun Sen to
lead the country for the whole of his
life,” the retired monarch said at the
gathering, during which he sang 21
songs, plus one requested by Hun
Sen.
It appears to be the closest Norodom Sihanouk has been to Hun Sen
and the ruling CPP in the past 13
years since UNTAC, said Koul
Panha, executive director of the
Committee for Free and Fair
Elections in Cambodia.
“He knows that the CPP is the
major party with a critical role in stabilizing the country and guaranteeing the existence of the monarchy,”
he said.
National stability and the survival
of the Cambodian monarchy are the
two overriding preoccupations of
Norodom Sihanouk, though his lifelong interest in national politics is
also evident.
Kek Galabru, president of local
rights group Licadho, said the former King remains very much interested, if not directly implicated in
politics.
“I think he’s still involved in politics in the larger sense of the term,”
she said.
“He is aware of the situation of
Cambodia, he follows the situation,
he is informed. But I don’t think he
wants to come back to politics.”
And for those who think the
retired King may still somehow be
engaged in politics, Norodom Sihanouk has continued the steady
drumbeat of disclaimers.
“His Majesty King-Father Norodom Sihanouk has repeatedly stated
on countless occasions that He only
wishes to live in peace and stay out
of politics,” the former King’s cabinet reiterated in April.
In the year since his last birthday,
Norodom Sihanouk has witnessed
both the decline and the emergence
of parties that trade in the symbols
of his long political career.
Among the casualties were dozens of Funcinpec members who
were fired by Hun Sen, and Prince
Norodom Sirivudh, who was removed as co-Interior Minister.
Under fierce verbal attack from the
CPP, Prince Norodom Ranariddh
quit as National Assembly president
and was then forced out as president
of Funcinpec.
As the week of Ranariddh’s ouster
ended, the former King had not yet
responded to a letter informing him
of Keo Puth Rasmey’s installation as
Funcinpec president, said Nouv
Sovathero, the party’s newly appointed spokesman.
Nouv Sovathero therefore declined to speculate on what Norodom Sihanouk’s relations would be
with a post-Ranariddh Funcinpec. In
an Oct 20 letter to Prince Ranariddh,
the former King described the
changes to Funcinpec as an “unforeseen Tragedy.”
Funcinpec will remain a firmly
royalist party, said Nouv Sovathero,
noting that Keo Puth Rasmey is
married to Princess Norodom Arun
Rasmey, retired King Sihanouk’s
youngest daughter.
The former King has saved his
strongest criticism for his nephew
Prince Sisowath Thomico, who, to
oppose Hun Sen and the CPP, has
formed the recently launched Sangkum Jatiniyum Front Party.
Norodom Sihanouk has ridiculed
every aspect of the party, from its
finances to its proposed ideology,
even at one point discussing Prince
Thomico’s marital status.
“[T]he terrible blows that Thomico has taken too great a pleasure
in dealing me under the pretext
struggling against our Great Leader
are endured by me with a certain
stoicism,” the former King wrote in
September.
In an interview, Prince Thomico
said he would not directly discuss
the King-Father’s apparent disapproval of the SJF.
“I am reminded of the phrase of
Buddha, ‘Everything is illusion.
Even illusion is illusion,’” Prince
Thomico said.
“You have to be very careful because sometimes the reality behind
things may not be what you see,” he
said.
The King-Father’s unique gestures towards the different political
parties in Cambodia are an attempt
to diffuse the many competing ten-
sions, he said.
“I think that you cannot understand the stance of King Sihanouk if
you do not have in mind what is
most important to him: Peace and
stability,” Prince Thomico said.
“It means that whenever he feels
that peace and stability are at stake,
he will take a softer stance toward
the CPP, just to cool and smooth
things down.”
As an example, Prince Thomico
pointed out that in September, after
both he and Prince Ranariddh called
for the King-Father to return to politics, the former King reacted immediately.
“It is not and never will it be a
question for me whether to accept
the post of prime minister...or another post or assignment that forces me
to leave my retirement,” he wrote in
a Sept 15 communique marked
“very urgent.”
Nevertheless, two days later, Hun
Sen gave an angry speech broadcast on radio and television in which
he denounced Princes Ranariddh
and Thomico for sedition.
This is just the sort of thing the
former King is seeking to avoid by
employing his idiosyncratic approach to each party, Prince Thomico said.
I would like to join all the
people of Cambodia and of the
world to wish your Majesty a very
happy 84th birthday.
You are the glue and unifying
force which holds your nation
together. May you continue to
enjoy a long and healthy life to
assure Cambodia’s good fortune
and prosperity.
Sinsuke Yamada, President
Otsuka Shoe Co., Ltd.
23-4, Shimbashi 4-Chome
Minato-ku, Tokyo
(105-0004) Japan
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
OCTOBER 31, 2006
10
His Majesty’s Birthday
Long Live Samdach Ta
Norodom Sihanouk
Good Health and Happiness
always on the Occasion
of His Majesty's 84th Birthday
From the Management & Staff
Sunway Hotel Phnom Penh
Long Live Samdach Ta
Norodom Sihanouk
Good Health and Happiness
always on the Occasion of
His Majesty's 84th Birthday
Nº 111 Norodom Blvd.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tel: (855) 23-217617, Fax: (855) 23-217618
E-mail: info@monument-books.com
Heng Chivoan
The royal family
greets well-wishers
at Phnom Penh
International Airport
in 2004
THE FUTURE OF THE MONARCHY
By James Welsh
Queen Norodom Monineath
with her sons, future King
Norodom Sihamoni, right, and
Prince Norodom Norindrapong
in this photo from the Royal
Palace archives
T
King who is a young man, cultivated, competent,
an artist, very well-informed about Cambodian
culture, and a man who has lived abroad long
enough to know what a modern country is,” he
said.
But Daniel also noted that the monarchy is in a
period of transition.
Describing Norodom Sihanouk, he said: “We
have at the head of Cambodia a truly exceptional
man who is a major public figure in world history
and who—whether or not he was King at different stages of his life—has always been considered the sovereign by the majority of the population.”
But the world has changed since Norodom
Sihanouk first reigned in the 1950s and 1960s, he
said. “Cambodians must redefine monarchy
adapted to the world today—and this is perfectly
doable.”
For some observers, the key to the monarchy’s survival will depend upon steering away
from politics and focusing on the role of national
figurehead and a symbol of stability.
Despite anti-royal rumblings from the CPP,
political analyst Lao Mong Hay said the monarchy is secure, and that the current government
will keep it in order to legitimize the CPP’s rule.
Even though the monarchy has been marginalized for the moment, the government still
needs it, he said.
“The Japanese shoguns needed the emperors
to legitimize their power, so does the Cambodian
shogun [need] the King to legitimize and consolidate his power,” Lao Mong Hay said.
Government spokesman and CPP Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said that Hun Sen
respects the King and the government has pro-
Norodom
Sihanouk pours
water over King
Norodom
Sihamoni at
his 2004
coronation
ceremonies
Heng Chivoan
he last 12 months have been a turbulent
time for Cambodia’s royal family. In
October 2005, Prime Minister Hun Sen
threatened to abolish the monarchy if King
Norodom Sihamoni failed to sign off on a controversial supplemental border agreement with
Vietnam. And earlier this month, retired King
Norodom Sihanouk warned that a request by
Prince Sisowath Thomico that he return and run
the county could also spell disaster. In a message
posted on his Web site, Norodom Sihanouk said
an unidentified “CPP personality” had told him
that such calls could bring the monarchy to a
close.
It is perhaps little wonder then that Julio
Jeldres, official biographer of retired King
Norodom Sihanouk, wrote in a recent e-mail that
he felt pessimistic about the institution’s future.
“The monarchy, I fear, has been treated with
contempt, threatened, used and abused by the
political elite for their own political ends, causing
an irreparable disunity among the Royal Family,”
Jeldres wrote.
One of the defining details of King Norodom
Sihamoni’s reign to date has been his decision to
avoid Cambodia’s rough-and-tumble political
scene.
For Kek Galabru, founder of local rights group
Licadho, this has been a wise move.
“Now [the people] start to respect and love the
new King because the new King Sihamoni has
no problems with politics—he’s not involved with
politics at all,” Kek Galabru said. But while the
monarchy appears stable under King Sihamoni,
she added: “After King Sihamoni—I don’t know.”
Part of the monarchy’s appeal for the general
public, Kek Galabru said, is that the public associates it with peace.
“When King Sihanouk was deposed, the war
arrived. This is in the mind of Cambodian people,” she said.
Cambodia’s love for the monarchy—and more
specifically Norodom Sihanouk—continued
through the Khmer Rouge period and was
rewarded when he was once again appointed to
the throne in 1993 as Cambodia began its transition from a communist state to a fledgling democracy, Kek Galabru said.
This love, she added, continues on today and
into the future through King Sihamoni.
“If one day the monarchy was to disappear, I
believe that Cambodians would lose a great deal,”
said Alain Daniel, who served as Norodom
Sihanouk’s private secretary in the late 1960s as
part of an agreement with the French government.
Daniel said the idea of a monarchy can contribute permanence and security in a country, as
was recently seen after the bloodless military
coup in Thailand.
“We now have the good fortune of having a
tected the achievements of the Sangkum Reastr
Niyum.
For some, King Sihamoni’s relatively low-profile reign is part of an ongoing redefinition of what
the Cambodian monarchy is all about.
“[King Sihamoni] is in the process of redefining what Cambodian monarchy should be,”
Daniel said. “He is doing this with finesse, progressively—Cambodian style—quietly and without upheaval.” (Additional reporting by Michelle
Vachon and Yun Samean)
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
OCTOBER 31, 2006
A Special Supplement to hTe CAMBODIA DAILY
I Extend My Heartiest Wishes to
Your Majesty
Norodom Sihanouk
on Your 84th Birthday
HARUHISA HANDA
Chancellor
UNIVERSITY of CAMBODIA
#143-145, Preah Norodom Blvd.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tel: +855-23-993274 Fax: +855-23-993275
www.uc.edu.kh
13
14
His Majesty’s Birthday
At a 1967 Paris press conference
Norodom Sihanouk says
Cambodians inside national
borders have been killed in
US-Vietnamese warfare
15-year-old then-Prince
Norodom Sihamoni
starring in his father’s
1968 film "The Little
Prince"
Courtesy of the Audiovisual Resource Center/French National Audiovisual Institute
Courtesy of the National Library of Cambodia
Watching...
CONTINUED FROM
PAGE 5
Depictions of an idealized Cambodian homeland are a recurring
theme.
“Shadow Over Angkor,” from the
late 1960s, tells the story of a foiled
plot to topple the government. It
opens with Norodom Sihanouk,
dressed in a white officer’s uniform,
white shoes, and white gloves, on
the deck of a battle ship.
Then it quickly moves to a series
of loving long shots, which show
Cambodia to be a nation of smooth
roads, bustling ports, swimming
pools, world-class monuments,
fresh-cut roses and a happy diplomatic corps.
It is a splendid, air-tight vision,
crafted even as his country teetered
on the brink of chaos.
The film premiered in Moscow in
1969, the same year that the US
began its secret bombings in
Cambodia.
Norodom Sihanouk’s scripts call
for good-looking commanding officers and pretty civilian girls, luxury
limousines, pine forests at sunset,
tragic love affairs, benevolent monarchs, and meddling, wealthy imperialist powers.
Some have topical interest: Some
people have taken his 1967 film,
“The Little Prince,” which starred
his son and now-King Norodom
Sihamoni, as an early sign of his
preferences for succession. Earlier
this year, he produced a film in
North Korea called “Reborn.” The
script begins with a voiceover vener-
ating Kim Il Sung and his son Kim
Jong Il, and then calls for shots of the
“beautiful People’s Democratic
Republic of Korea, which is from
every point of view so admirable,
and making formidable progress.”
One of his latest efforts, “Heartrending Separation,” a short film
based on the novel “Axelle” by
Pierre Benoit, which is scheduled
for production either late this year or
early next, tells the story of a wild
and bloody battle between red
“Kambu” soldiers and foreign invaders known as the “Vamnietians.”
The script has been posted on the
retired King’s Web site.
Some of his films are ripped from
the headlines. Earlier this year, as
reports emerged about the mistress
of his son Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Norodom Sihanouk filmed a
12-minute sketch, “Who Does Not
Have a Mistress?” The title was
taken from Funcinpec lawmaker
Princess Norodom Vacheara, who
asked the question in an interview
while arguing that extramarital
affairs should not be used to persecute royalist officials.
Filmmaking is a habit the retired
King seems hard-pressed to drop.
In early October, he posted on his
Web site a newspaper article which
told of a strange and murderous
love triangle. The victim’s wife and
daughter, who shared a boyfriend,
poisoned him with battery acid and
the wife then cut his penis off.
“I have stopped making films,”
wrote the retired King. “But if I were
still ‘active’ as a filmmaker, I could
never allow myself to show in a film
of N Sihanouk details that abase my
race and myself.” (Additional reporting by Kuch Naren)
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
Long Live Their Majesties
King Norodom Sihamoni and
King Father Norodom Sihanouk
With all the best wishes to Their Majesties form the Management and
Staff of the PYRAMID Co., Ltd., Translation Service
#216B St. 63, Boeung Keng Kang 1, Phnom Penh
Tel: (855) 23 217 545 / 012 863 545
Fax: (855) 23 987 792 – PO Box: 972
pyramid@online.com.kh – www.pyramid-e.com
Media...
CONTINUED FROM
PAGE 3
accusing it of systematically putting
down his regime, wrote Meyer,
who was Norodom Sihanouk’s
political adviser in the 1960s.
The retired King, however, kept
a written correspondence with the
media worldwide; he graciously
answered all questions, and sent
long telegrams with either warm
thanks for favorable stories or corrections and even indignant denials
for negative ones, Meyer wrote.
“[Norodom Sihanouk] paid a lot
of attention to what the press wrote
about Cambodia because he felt
that, in a way, the honor and dignity of Cambodians were being tarnished if the article was unreasonably critical,” Jeldres said.
Norodom Sihanouk apparently
has kept all these documents on
file—the news stories, good and
bad, and the messages he sent
after their publication. He regularly
posts some of them on his Web site
or reprints them in his monthly bulletin.
And, it would appear, he never
forgets any of them.
Among the messages he has
recently issued in response to
Prince Sisowath Thomico’s giving
his newly-formed political party a
royalist agenda, Norodom Sihanouk resurrected this month a letter he had sent to the publication
Indochina Report in Singapore in
April 1987.
The lengthy letter—posted in
installments on his Web site—was
in reply to a 1986 story written by
Prince Thomico criticizing Norodom Sihanouk and his regime of
the 1950s and 1960s.
As the publications he created
demonstrate, the retired King has
not viewed the media solely as a
political tool.
“Kambuja,” which he launched
in 1965, was a magazine-style, color
publication with full-page photos
and a mix of in-depth stories and
light features to inform and entertain the Cambodian public.
It appeared in English and in
French, which many Cambodians
spoke at the time, Daniel said.
Its May 15, 1966 issue, for instance, included: an account of an
armed confrontation between Thai
and Cambodian military at Preah
Vihear temple; an interview with
Chinese President Mao Zedong by
Norodom Sihanouk with a photo of
the two heads of state; a feature on
Prey Veng province; a business
story on the pepper crop in
Kampot province, complete with
costs and expected yield over 5
years; a poem by H H Doeung, a
Cambodian returning to the country after a 10-year absence; words
and music of a Norodom Sihanouk
song; a story on basketball; and
political cartoons.
Among his other publications
were “Le Sangkum,” an in-depth
monthly on politics and history,
and the humorous publication
“Phseng Phseng,” Daniel said.
Today the retired King’s messages continue to draw public
attention to an array of issues.
In July 2005, in the margin of a
story on Montagnard asylum seekers deported to Vietnam after
being refused refugee status by the
UN, he wrote: “Our Buddhism and
our Democracy should bring us to
grant asylum to these unfortunate
Montagnards.”
Earlier this month, he referred
to the French documentary “Indigenes,” which aired on the French
television station TV5 in Phnom
Penh, saying that the program on
“natives” in the French army failed
to mention Cambodians who
fought for France in the two world
wars and received virtually nothing
in return.
Most of these messages the
retired King writes by hand himself in French—the language he
learned as a boy in then Indochina
and in which he wrote his books in
the 1970s.
“[Norodom Sihanouk] belonged to that generation of heads of
state for whom style was important,” and who chiseled every sentence of their messages or speeches, Daniel said.
“I believe that he has always
been interested in journalism and
journalists, not only because he
considered [the press] an important lever in politics...but also
because this is a man who likes to
write” Daniel said.
“In my opinion, had he not been a
head of state, he would have had the
qualities to be a great journalist.”
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
A Special Supplement to The CAMBODIA DAILY
H.M. King Norodom Sihanouk with H.E. Jiř í Šitler,
Ambassador of the Czech Republic in 2002
H.R.H. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Head of State of Cambodia,
decorated by the Order of the White Lion,
the highest Czechoslovak State Award in 1960
The Embassy of the Czech Republic
in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Czech - Cambodia diplomatic relations
submits its most loyal greetings and best wishes to
His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk
The King Father
on the occassion of His Majesty’s Birthday
Embassy of the Czech Republic
71/6 Ruam Rudee Soi 2, Ploenchit Rd., P.O. Box 522, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Tel: 662-2553027, Fax: 662-2537637, E-mail: bangkok@embassy.mzv.cz
15
16
His Majesty’s Birthday
THE KING FATHER’S DIGITAL DISPATCHES
His 84th Was A Busy Year For The World’s Most Prolific Royal Blogger
Mok, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary,
that is, just 5 or 6 aging, sick and unrepentant
individuals, one could provide immensely beneficial services to the Little People...useful in
lifting them from their misery.”
- PHNOM PENH, JULY 6, 2006
ON THE KHMER ROUGE:
ON NORTH KOREA:
“The work of extremely heroic struggles for
total and irreversible National Liberation, for
national Defense, National Education and
Juche-Socialist Construction by His Excellency the President-Marshal and Great
Leader KIM IL SUNG, and by his illustrious
and beloved Son and most worthy Successor
His Excellency the Marshal-Great Leader
KIM JONG IL, is that of two true GIANTS of
universal HISTORY.”
- PYONGYANG, MARCH 3, 2006
ON THE PRESS:
“HE [Information Minister] Mr. KHIEU KANHARITH has just reminded me that I promised never to sue journalists. Consequently I
will not sue the journalist or journalists who
produce or who shall produce texts, articles
slandering me, dragging me through the mud
or insulting me or distorting History. I shall
content myself with publishing ‘clarifications’
or other texts (Replies, Protests, Reestablishments of historical truths...)”
- JANGSUWON STATE GUEST HOUSE,
NORTH KOREA, APRIL 25, 2006
ON WORLD CUP FOOTBALL:
“Alas, instead of two victories in two matches,
France has only gotten two draws. And this,
one must underscore, was due to indubitably
anti-French referees who, respectively, denied
the French in official competition a penalty and
a ‘well-cooked’ goal, that is, obvious, shown on
television.”
- PHNOM PENH, JUNE 20, 2006
“Continuing to display, to exhibit without
shame, for the pleasure of tourists and other
‘visitors,’ the skulls, bone fragments (skeletons, etc.) of the innocent victims of the
Diabolical K.R. Polpotian Monsters, is to show
extraordinary contempt and a total lack of pity
for the victims of the diabolical KR Polpotians.”
- PHNOM PENH, JULY 16 2006
ON FRANCE’S WORLD CUP DEFEAT:
“If [Italian footballer] Mr. Marco Materazzi
hadn’t uttered words of very grave, extremely
grave insult, to [French player] Mr. Zidane, it is
certain that the latter would not have been
crazy enough to deliver that ‘head butt’ to the
Italian.”
- PHNOM PENH, JULY 16, 2006
ON FORMER KR COMMANDER TA MOK:
“And now there are a considerable number of
our compatriots who, as ‘worthy’ sons and
daughters, are deciding to pay homage to the
prosthesis of a leg of TA MOK (a warrior who
reportedly lost a leg by jumping on a landmine) as an equal to the relics of Buddha!!!”
- PHNOM PENH, AUG 6, 2006
ON DISGRACED FORMER PHNOM PENH
POLICE CHIEF HENG POV:
“Heng ‘POV,’ of course still outside Cambodia,
is seeking to become a (low-level) ‘Khmer
HOMER’ by continuing, with visible delight, to
Top Left: After playing basketball in
1963, Norodom Sihanouk tells journalists in Phnom Penh that he does not
want to be dependent on the US
Photo: Audiovisual Resource Center/French National
Audiovisual Institute
ON THE KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL:
“With the dozens of millions of US $ reserved
for the ‘trial,’ the trial in fact honoring Dutch, Ta
tell of horrible and ‘fascinating’ stories of SuperCorruption and of countless ‘Frankensteinian’
‘Crimes’ allegedly committed by our ‘new
Fatherland of Angkor’ Regime. [...] At any rate,
in Phnom Penh they are unanimous in making
the following observation: HENG ‘POV,’ as a
‘super-star,’ is entirely eclipsing the ‘star’
[Prince Norodom] Ranariddh. The latter can
only be saved in this regard by his lovely ‘Evil
Fox’ ‘sorceress,’ alias ‘Wolf of the Devil!’”
- SIEM REAP TOWN, AUG 23, 2006
Right: Norodom Sihanouk boating off
the coast of Koh Kong province.
Published Jan 15, 1967, in Kambuja
magazine
Photo: Courtesy of the National Library of Cambodia
ON ADULTERY:
“It seems that only communist Countries consider adultery a ‘crime.’ According to ‘antiCommunist Liberals,’ one can love and practice adultery freely, as one loves and freely eats
foie gras and ice-cream.”
- SEPT 6, 2006
EXCERPTED FROM THE ORIGINAL
SCREENPLAY “SORRY, LADY, I’M GAY”:
“(Widowed) Lady: ‘Mr. Rene, as I have told you
already, a year ago I lost my husband who was
a Colonel in the Army of the USA. He died in
Iraq. And you tell me that you live normally in
France with your parents... Mr. Rene, I will
come right to the point. By visiting the
Fatherland of our origin, Kampuchea, Destiny
has allowed me to make your acquaintance in
Angkor, symbol of the greatest glory of
Kampuchea. And I have fallen in love with you.
Will you marry me in Angkor, my beloved
Rene?’
“Rene: Madam, I too will come right to the
point: I am an homosexual. Here is my wife,
Mister Robert.’
“(The handsome and young Robert
emerges in a dressing gown from the bathroom and, smiling, comes to greet the Khmer
widow of America most respectfully).”
- OCT 2, 2006
COMPILED BY DOUGLAS GILLISON
THE CAMBODIA DAILY