Hun Sen Thunders, Artist Falls to Covid, Mekong Nears Crisis
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, August 6, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
MEKONG FEARS: Dams in China have so altered the river’s flow that in some areas water levels are dropping despite the monsoon season.
TEEN JAILED: An autistic 16-year-old had his bail denied and will remain in notorious Prey Sar Prison. His dad, an ex-opposition leader, is also there.
QUARANTINE STOPS: Police weren’t joking about strict enforcement of Covid-19 regulations. In one night, more than 1,000 vehicles were seized.
WRITER HONORED: Anthony Veasna So was on his way to literary stardom when his life was cut short at 28. His writing has been called "a rollicking plunge into sex, drugs, genocide and wicked wit.”
THE LEDE
PM For Life
Prime Minister Hun Sen this week hammered home one of his favorite talking points: that he will stay in power as long as he wants. In the same speech, he denied being some sort of dictator like others the country has known.
“No one was more dictatorial than Pol Pot,” the 68-year-old strongman said, “but he was in power for only three years, eight months and 20 days, while Hun Sen has been in power for 42 years.”
He was the youngest prime minister in the world when he took power in 1985 as a war-hardened 32-year-old. His predecessor, Chan Sy, died in office a month earlier.
The bold words are far more than bluster. A legal scholar pointed out Cambodia’s constitution has no term limits for its prime minister.
Hun Sen left it up to the public to decide how he has held a tight grip on power for so many years. “Please use your brains to think as to why this man holds power so long?” he said.
An Artistic Legacy
Srey Bandaul, an accomplished artist, beloved professor and quiet pillar of the Cambodian arts community, died Wednesday from complications of Covid-19. He was 47.
Born in Battambang in 1973, Srey Bandaul fled to a refugee camp with his family in 1981. There, he studied drawing with a French volunteer who helped children deal with trauma through art. “My friends drew pictures of the Khmer Rouge killing people,” he told VOA in 2019. “I drew lovers holding hands.”
He returned to Battambang and with fellow artists and their former teacher founded Phare Ponleu Selpak, a visual and performing arts school known for the Phare circus, in 1994. He taught art there until his death.
His work was exhibited around the world and he wrote two books: Looking at Angkor and The Land of the Elephants.
Teen Stuck In Prison
Prey Sar Prison is no place for an autistic teenager, but that’s where the son of an ex-opposition leader will remain after a court denied his release on bail.
Police in June arrested 16-year-old Kak Sovanchhay, who has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, on charges of incitement and insulting public officials. This week, a judge said the boy would commit the same crimes if released.
His father, former CNRP leader Kak Komphear, is also in Prey Sar, serving a 20-month term for “conspiring to insult and incite crimes.”
The government in recent years has charged more than 100 opposition officials with dubious crimes.
Oil Tanker Repo
Cambodia’s oil ambitions have gone down the drain.
Thai creditors last week repossessed a tanker filled with every drop of the Kingdom’s oil production after the offshore drilling company fell behind on lease payments.
KrisEnergy began production in December but filed for bankruptcy in June when output failed to meet projections. It had pumped about 290,000 barrels worth an estimated $21 million before the Thai agent took its tanker back.
Cambodia said it will sue both companies.
TALKING POINTS
Mekong Crisis
Water levels in the mighty Mekong are not where they should be. In some places the river level is actually decreasing, despite the onset of the monsoon season. Experts say upstream Chinese dams are to blame and the river is approaching a crisis point.
Right to Life
Not all rights are equal, Prime Minister Hun Sen told a crowd gathered for the launch of youth vaccinations. “The first priority is the right to life,” he said. Other freedoms, like democracy and freedom of expression, take a back seat.
Ukraine and the Kingdom
Promoting Khmer culture is the life’s work of 60-year-old Ouk Dara Chan, an art teacher and Taekwondo black belt based in Kiev. He’s been exhibiting his paintings of Cambodian temples for nearly 30 years.
Free Rong Chhun
Dozens of rights groups demanded the government drop charges against Rong Chhun, the labor leader imprisoned for comments he made about the Vietnamese border. The government told those groups to pound sand.
Journalism Threat
The government on Monday launched a new committee to scrutinize the media. Claims of legal harassment and intimidation by reporters are one the rise. Journalists fear the new committee will only make things worse.
Curfew Scofflaws Busted
Police made no bones about new lockdown rules. Capital cops on Tuesday arrested 21 people for breaking curfew. On Wednesday, they fined 500 people and confiscated more than 1,000 vehicles. Authorities have closed markets and implemented strict lockdowns in an attempt to slow the spread of the Delta variant.
Covid-19 Watch
Good News: Average new daily infections are at their lowest since late May. Cambodia began vaccinating children aged 12 to 17 across four provinces. Nearly one-third of the country is fully vaccinated.
Bad News: The highly contagious Delta variant is here and spreading quickly. It threatens to undo progress made in recent weeks.
ANTHONY VEASNA SO: 1992 – 2020
Anthony Veasna So Takes On Trauma, but Doesn’t Leave Out the Jokes
Classics of immigrant storytelling can feel sparse and solemn. The stories in So’s “Afterparties” fill the silence, spilling over with transgressive humor and exuberant language.
Infinite Self Anthony Veasna So died unexpectedly last winter, before his debut book was released. Everyone remembers him differently.
For the occasion of his first book, Afterparties, Anthony Veasna So would have loved it all: the interviews, book tour, readings, attention, praise, pans, mythmaking, the opportunity to opine on the treacly queer writers he hates (or at least shade them) and the insufficiency of Asian American identity.
REVIEW: Anthony Veasna So’s ‘Afterparties’ is a bittersweet testament to the late author’s talents
REVIEW: Debut from the late Anthony Veasna So a rollicking plunge into sex, drugs, genocide and wicked wit
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
A Cambodian Dance Troupe Tours the US
August 4, 2001
When 41 Cambodian dancers and musicians arrive in the US this weekend for their first US tour in more than a decade, they only need to pack their costumes and instruments.
When They Lose Faith in Banks, Some Invest in the Tong Tin
August 3, 2001
Sok Kha doesn’t trust banks. They want too much collateral, offer too little interest and—most importantly—they can close, leaving depositors without their savings, she said.
Drunken Villagers Riot Over Bad Land Deal
August 2, 2001
Several thousand villagers in the Dangkao district northwest of Phnom Penh attacked a commune headquarters building and burned everything in it because they believed their commune chief had cheated them.
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