Hun Sen’s Political Pawn

Op-Ed by Khmerization
Saturday 12th December, 2009

“The arrest and the release of Siwarak Chotipong is Mr. Hun Sen’s political and diplomatic game, set up to canvass political supports back home and to use as a diplomatic weapon to fight against the Thai Prime Minister Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva.”

The Thai spy’s case, the arrest and the release of Mr. Siwarak Chotipong, has been played out like a soap opera on prime time television. In fact, it is a drama with the script written by Mr. Hun Sen and the soap opera being directed by Mr. Hun Sen alone and the hero being the Pheu Thai Party of Thailand which is claiming credit for his release for its domestic political consumption to satisfy its Thai electoral constituents back home. And the victims of all this political game are Siwarak Chotipong and his poor mother who has to endure the pain and the suffering of seeing her son being handcuffed, incarcerated and used as a political pawn.

The arrest and the release of Siwarak Chotipong is Mr. Hun Sen’s political and diplomatic game, set up to canvass political supports back home and to use as a diplomatic weapon to fight against the Thai Prime Minister Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva who has vowed to punish Mr. Hun Sen’s government for appointing fugitive ex-Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra as its economic advisor.

Mr. Hun Sen’s political and diplomatic childishness has cost Cambodia dearly, both in term of financial costs- the costs of protecting and housing Mr. Thaksin and the cost of jailing and court proceedings against Siwarak- and the deepening diplomatic problems with Thailand which will eventually cause further delays in future border negotiations between the two countries.

Mr. Hun Sen’s political game has ruined the life of an innocent man and ruined the political chances of another man- his eternal friend Thaksin Shinawatra. While his political manoeuvres seemed to have aimed at helping to revive the political comeback of his eternal friend, Mr. Hun Sen’s real motives for all the political drama in the last two months were aimed at the political assassination of Mr. Abhisit. Sadly, both Mr. Hun Sen’s goals had the opposite political effect and failed miserably. First, Mr. Thaksin’s political fortunes had suffered irreparably after he toyed with Mr. Hun Sen’s game by visiting Cambodia in mid November which upset many of his supporters. Secondly, not only that Mr. Abhisit had not been assassinated politically, he has thrived politically from Mr. Hun Sen’s political theatre. While Mr. Thaksin’s popularity had plunged abysmally, Mr. Abhisit’s popularity, on the contrary, had skyrocketed.

While many Cambodians would welcome the release of Mr. Siwarak Chotipong, due to enormous helps from Mr. Hun Sen, many more Cambodians would resent the fact that Mr. Hun Sen did not make good efforts to help release many Cambodians who were incarcerated in Thai prisons for forgivable crimes such as crossing the borders illegally. It would be very humanitarian of Mr. Hun Sen to work with the Thai authority to release the 16 Cambodian prisoners imprisoned in Chonburi province for allegedly logging illegally in Thai territories a few months ago. Many more Khmer migrant workers had been killed by Thai soldiers every months in the border areas. With the efforts and the resources he had put into working for the release of the alleged Thai spy Siwarak Chotipong, many Cambodians would have expected Mr. Hun Sen to put the same efforts and resources, if not more, to help working for the release of many, it not all, Khmer prisoners in Thailand.

The latest news coming out of Cambodia is that, on Monday Mr. Hun Sen will hold a big ceremony to transfer Mr. Siwarak Chotipong into the care of his mother and Pheu Thai Party President Chavalit Yongchaiyudh- another political exercise with enormous costs to the Cambodian state coffers.

Mr. Siwarak is a simple and ordinary prisoner and the fanfare and extravagant honour accorded to him can only be described as a political drama played out by Mr. Hun Sen for his domestic political consumption and to help reviving the political chances of the Pheu Thai Party. And this is not in the best interests of Cambodia.