Phnom Penh (Cambodia).07/01/2009. Olympic Stadium. Crowd celebrating 30th anniversary of what the CPP presents as the country's “liberation”© Vandy Rattana
cambodia.ka-set.info
By Duong Sokha
07-01-2009
On Wednesday, Cambodia marked the 30th anniversary of January 7th with festivities organised by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) at the height of its power and gathering some 50,000 visitors at the Olympic stadium in Phnom Penh. The crowd, composed of a variety of civil servants, monks, students and officials representing the different districts of the capital and the country's 24 towns and provinces, chanted in unison slogans uttered by the organisers, glorifying January 7th and the CPP. The celebrations of that particular date are still fuelling debates and controversy among politicians and mark, for some, the liberation of the country from the yoke of the Khmer Rouge when for others it is rather synonymous with the start of the occupation of the Kingdom by the Vietnamese.
A conventional ceremony
The celebrations started off with the three “Samdech” - Chea Sim (President of the Senate), Hun Sen (Prime Minister) and Heng Samrin (President of the National Assembly) – parading in the stadium before finally reaching the official grandstand. The celebrations then gave way to a presentation of the different army corps and a parade of floats representing the Kingdom’s 24 provinces and municipalities and illustrating their own characteristic assets along with the CPP’s achievements in their part of the country. For instance, the Phnom Penh float carried a small papier-mâché version of the Independence Monument surrounded with pictures of skyscrapers, whereas the Siem Reap float showed pictures of the Prime Minister playing golf net to other pictures of Angkor Wat packed with tourists. A few chants and dance steps later, a giant statue of a Teveda deity appeared, standing in the same fashion as the one represented on the CPP logo.
Why celebrate January 7th?
Khieu Kanharith, Minister of Information and spokesperson for the government, set the tone of the day with a press conference given on the morning of Sunday January 4th. There, he applied himself to explaining the major importance of such a commemoration, arguing that this was “a history lesson” which no one should forget, a lesson about leaders' bad decisions which led to the country’s destruction, but also a lesson about divisions which should be overcome. “It took us thirty years to rebuild the country!”
And to those who are more inclined to honour October 23rd 1991, date of the Paris Peace Accords – which used to be but is not any more a national Bank Holiday in Cambodia – when all Khmer factions sat at the same table, he responded that “without January 7th, there would have been no October 23rd”. Besides, these Agreements, according to him, lost most of their meaning when the Khmer Rouge flip-flopped and decided to withdraw their participation to the election process organised under the supervision of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). The Minister stressed that the country had “had to wait until 1998 for war to end” and for the Khmer Rouge movement to be entirely brought down.
He observed that on January 7th, the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power by the United Front for the Salvation of Kampuchea (UFSK), led by Heng Samrin who called the Vietnamese army for help.
Moreover, if some argue that the CPP does not acknowledge the achievements of the UNTAC, it is because the authority “spent more than two billion dollars on their mission in Cambodia, and 80% of that budget did not go straight into Cambodians' pockets but were used to buy equipment abroad. [...] It is also because the UNTAC did not help us build schools and hospitals and pay for teachers' wages... Nobody helped us!”.
The CPP is not appropriating the event, according to Khieu KanharithThe CPP is not turning the situation to their own advantage, the government spokesperson explained. To convince the press, he argued that the party logo was not represented on the official emblem chosen for the January 7th ceremony, and that “all political parties” had been invited to take part in the celebrations.
“In the past, opposition parties accused the state of wasting public money to organise this ceremony instead of using it for the development of the country. On that matter, I need to stress that those festivities were financed by CPP members' personal funds”, Khieu Kanharith said.
The Minister then protested against those who claim that the CPP “forces” the population to celebrate January 7th. “If it were the case, the CPP would have mobilised twice as many people [on Wednesday]” All those who came did so on a voluntary basis.”
He concluded by saying that those who reject the symbolical meaning of January 7th are Cambodians who live abroad. “They are filled with the feeling of guilt. They know that when their fellow-citizens were suffering, they were helpless and could not share their hardship. They understand January 7th, the criticism they express is of a sole political nature!”
Rough list of the CPP's achievements...
Chea Sim, President of the Senate and CPP chairman, pronounced the ceremony's official speech, insisting on the fact that the country should continue to be rehabilitated, “to allow no return to its tragic past”. Speaking at length about the “victory” - the official terminology in use - these celebrations “in the memory of the sacrifice of our heroic soldiers and people all over the country who have made courageous efforts in the struggle to save the country from the regime of genocide”, he praised the liberating UFSK and expressed “in the name of the people of Cambodia, [his] deep gratitude for the government and people of Vietnam, for providing a sincere and great assistance for the people of Cambodia” during this period of torment in the history of the country.
He then proceeded to making a long list of achievements, which the CPP ought to be credited for: the “win-win” policy which allowed the reunification of the country on the basis of “sincere national reconciliation”, the fact that macro-economic stability has been maintained over the past ten years, the decrease in the level of poverty, “reduced from 47% in 1994 to 30% in 2007, the “progress made in democracy and pluralism”, etc. He did not fail to mention the government's success in gathering close to a billion US dollars from donor-countries for 2009.
However, he said, difficulties remain, like the trauma left by the Khmer Rouge regime or a non-violence culture, yet to be built. As a reminder, he called the audience to learn the lessons of the past: “People are the ones who build history”, “solidarity is the chief factor of all successes”, the importance of “the correlation between peace and national reconciliation”, of “resolutely defending the foundation of long lasting independence, national sovereignty and territorial integrity in all circumstances”, of “having self-confidence in resolving national problems”, and last, of “solidarity and cooperation with other countries, especially with neighbouring countries”, a process which is to him “inevitable in keeping peace, stability and progress”. On this issue, the CPP chairman expressed his support to the government in “making stringent efforts in settling the border issue with Thailand”, with a view to build stability, peace, cooperation and development on the border.
Chea Sim finished his laudatory speech by declaring that “the thirty years passed truly show that the Cambodian People's Party is of the people, by the people and for the people”.
