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Khmer Post Radio

Sunday, November 21, 2010.



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Khmer History MP3



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Sam Rainsy condemns Hun Sen's dangerous game with Thailand




Sam Rainsy condemns Hun Sen's dangerous game with Thailand Sam Rainsy

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy accused Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday of playing a dangerous game by drawing their country into a conflict with Thailand.

Hun Sen used the dispute with Thailand to divert local people's attention away from his failure to handle a territorial loss to Vietnam, he said.
Sam Rainsy's parliamentary immunity was revoked this week after he was accused of uprooting boundary markers along the country's eastern border with Vietnam.
Hun Sen only paid a lot of attention to the possibility of Cambodia losing territory to Thailand but he neglected to say this danger had already materialised on a large scale on the eastern border with Vietnam, said Rainsy who leads the Sam Rainsy Party.
Thailand had only recently started to unfairly challenge the status of a piece of Cambodian territory surrounding Preah Vihear temple, while Vietnam had grabbed thousands of square kilometres of land in many provinces over the last 30 years, he said.
The opposition leader, who is in Europe now, said in an open letter to the Cambodian people that Hun Sen was using a classic tactic to divert attention from Vietnam by exacerbating tensions and drawing unpre-cedented attention its western neighbour, Thailand.
Cambodia and Thailand have been at loggerheads over Preah Vihear for more than a year. The conflict was fuelled by Hun Sen appointing former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra as his adviser, which prompted retaliatory moves over the past two weeks. Both countries have downgraded diplomatic relations with each other.
Rainsy said Hun Sen opted to do this to secure his power and to save Vietnamese interests in Cambodia. Vietnam ousted the Khmer Rouge from the power in 1979 and installed a regime that Hun Sen was part of, which held power till 1989.
"From a historical and geopolitical perspective Thailand is Vietnam's main rival in mainland Indochina. Therefore, weakening Thailand is in the long term interest of her rival," Rainsy said.
"To weaken Thailand, nothing is more effective than fanning the flames of internal divisions among the Thai people and supporting one fighting group against the other," he said in the letter.
The opposition leader urged Hun Sen's government to remain neutral over internal disputes in other countries.
Any spill over from the current tension or unrest in Thailand could be very detrimental to Cambodia, he said.
Hun Sen's miscalculation was like throwing oil on fire in a neighbouring country and was likely at the least to burn his fingers, and at worse, could set Cambodia ablaze, as past experiences showed when "we unnecessarily and unwisely took sides in our neighbours' internal disputes", he said.
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Hun Sen Opposes More Khmer Rouge Arrests

PHNOM PENH — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen renewed his criticism of the country's UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal Monday, warning that arresting more suspects could spark civil war.
Hun Sen spoke in response to last week's ruling by the tribunal allowing prosecutors to pursue further arrests. The matter had been in contention because the Cambodian co-prosecutor opposed the idea, while his international counterpart supported it.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures at a ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on September 7. (Photo: AP)
The tribunal is seeking justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the communist regime's radical policies while in power between 1975-79.
Critics allege that Hun Sen has sought to limit the tribunal's scope because other potential defendants are now his political allies. Hun Sen served as a Khmer Rouge officer, before changing sides, and many of his major political allies are also former members of the group.
Brad Adams, Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said he believed Hun Sen was seeking to protect members of his own Cambodian People's Party, who could be targets for prosecution. But he said it was unlikely more arrests would be made.
"(Hun Sen) has been saying the same thing for 10 years, since before the court was set up," Adams said. "It's never happened, and it's not going to happen."
He pointed out that the Khmer Rouge have been defunct for a decade, and that its former leaders are more interested in business than war, and even if they sought to fight, they would be unable to recruit anyone to their side.
The tribunal's long-awaited first trial—of the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer, for war crimes and crimes against humanity—opened in March. A joint trial with four other senior officials—the only others currently in detention—is expected in the next year or two.
Hun Sen said that if foreign aid donors stopped funding the tribunal, Cambodia would carry on the proceedings on its own, without the international participation it now has. The tribunal employs joint teams of Cambodian and international court personnel.
"I would like to tell you that if you prosecute (more leaders) without thinking beforehand about national reconciliation and peace, and if war breaks out again and kills 20,000 or 30,000 people, who will responsible?" Hun Sen said. He said he was not trying to use his influence against the court, but only stating the situation.
There was no immediate reaction to Hun Sen's comment by representatives of the tribunal.
The Khmer Rouge came to power after a bitter 1970-75 civil war, and after being ousted from power in 1979, carried out an insurgency from the jungle until 1999.
Hun Sen said that he had devoted several years of his life to persuading Khmer Rouge leaders and their soldiers to end their fighting, so he could not allow anyone to drag the country back into a new civil war.
"I will not allow anyone to destroy what I have achieved," Hun Sen said. "The value of peace here is huge."
Hun Sen has dominated Cambodian politics for more than two decades. He ousted his former co-prime minister in a 1997 coup and has since ruled virtually unchallenged.
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Unexplained Mysteries of Cambodia Genocide (Pol Pot) - 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths


Pol Pot Torture


An attempt by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25 percent of the country's population from starvation, overwork and executions. 

Pol Pot was born in 1925 (as Saloth Sar) into a farming family in central Cambodia, which was then part of French Indochina. In 1949, at age 20, he traveled to Paris on a scholarship to study radio electronics but became absorbed in Marxism and neglected his studies. He lost his scholarship and returned to Cambodia in 1953 and joined the underground Communist movement. The following year, Cambodia achieved full independence from France and was then ruled by a royal monarchy. 

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Pol POtBy 1962, Pol Pot had become leader of the Cambodian Communist Party and was forced to flee into the jungle to escape the wrath of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia. In the jungle, Pol Pot formed an armed resistance movement that became known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) and waged a guerrilla war against Sihanouk's government.

In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was ousted, not by Pol Pot, but due to a U.S.-backed right-wing military coup. An embittered Sihanouk retaliated by joining with Pol Pot, his former enemy, in opposing Cambodia's new military government. That same year, the U.S. invaded Cambodia to expel the North Vietnamese from their border encampments, but instead drove them deeper into Cambodia where they allied themselves with the Khmer Rouge.


From 1969 until 1973, the U.S. intermittently bombed North Vietnamese sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia, killing up to 150,000 Cambodian peasants. As a result, peasants fled the countryside by the hundreds of thousands and settled in Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh. 

All of these events resulted in economic and military destabilization in Cambodia and a surge of popular support for Pol Pot. 

By 1975, the U.S. had withdrawn its troops from Vietnam. Cambodia's government, plagued by corruption and incompetence, also lost its American military support. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army, consisting of teenage peasant guerrillas, marched into Phnom Penh and on April 17 effectively seized control of Cambodia. 

Once in power, Pol Pot began a radical experiment to create an agrarian utopia inspired in part by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, which he had witnessed, first-hand during a visit to Communist China. 

Mao's "Great Leap Forward" economic program included forced evacuations of Chinese cities and the purging of "class enemies." Pol Pot would now attempt his own "Super Great Leap Forward" in Cambodia, which he renamed the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. 

He began by declaring, "This is Year Zero," and that society was about to be "purified." Capitalism, Western culture, city life, religion, and all foreign influences were to be extinguished in favor of an extreme form of peasant Communism. 


          All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Thus Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world.
All of Cambodia's cities were then forcibly evacuated. At Phnom Penh, two million inhabitants were evacuated on foot into the countryside at gunpoint. As many as 20,000 died along the way. 

Millions of Cambodians accustomed to city life were now forced into slave labor in Pol Pot's "killing fields" where they soon began dying from overwork, malnutrition and disease, on a diet of one tin of rice (180 grams) per person every two days. 

Workdays in the fields began around 4 a.m. and lasted until 10 p.m., with only two rest periods allowed during the 18 hour day, all under the armed supervision of young Khmer Rouge soldiers eager to kill anyone for the slightest infraction. Starving people were forbidden to eat the fruits and rice they were harvesting. After the rice crop was harvested, Khmer Rouge trucks would arrive and confiscate the entire crop. 

Ten to fifteen families lived together with a chairman at the head of each group. The armed supervisors made all work decisions with no participation from the workers who were told, "Whether you live or die is not of great significance." Every tenth day was a day of rest. There were also three days off during the Khmer New Year festival. 

Throughout Cambodia, deadly purges were conducted to eliminate remnants of the "old society" - the educated, the wealthy, Buddhist monks, police, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and former government officials. Ex-soldiers were killed along with their wives and children. Anyone suspected of disloyalty to Pol Pot, including eventually many Khmer Rouge leaders, was shot or bludgeoned with an ax. "What is rotten must be removed," a Khmer Rouge slogan proclaimed. 

In the villages, unsupervised gatherings of more than two persons were forbidden. Young people were taken from their parents and placed in communals. They were later married in collective ceremonies involving hundreds of often-unwilling couples. 

Up to 20,000 persons were tortured into giving false confessions at Tuol Sleng, a school in Phnom Penh, which had been converted into a jail. Elsewhere, suspects were often shot on the spot before any questioning. 

Ethnic groups were attacked including the three largest minorities; the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambodia in 1975 perished. Khmer Rouge also forced Muslims to eat pork and shot those who refused. 

On December 25, 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia seeking to end Khmer Rouge border attacks. On January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell and Pol Pot was deposed. The Vietnamese then installed a puppet government consisting of Khmer Rouge defectors. 

Pol Pot retreated into Thailand with the remnants of his Khmer Rouge army and began a guerrilla war against a succession of Cambodian governments lasting over the next 17 years. After a series of internal power struggles in the 1990s, he finally lost control of the Khmer Rouge. In April 1998, 73-year-old Pol Pot died of an apparent heart attack following his arrest, before he could be brought to trial by an international tribunal for the events of 1975-79. 
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Why supporting Tibetan struggle?

Sunday, October 3, 2010.

October 2, 2010
By MP Son Chhay
As a matter of principle, if we can not support Vietnam or Thailand's invasion of Cambodia, then how can we turn around and support or ignore China's invasion of Tibet? The reality is that to have any international credibility, Cambodia must not put itself into any position that will be viewed as supporting crimes against humanity – whether this be in Cambodia, in Burma or, in Tibet.



SRP MP Son Chhay
My recent trip to take part in Tibet's 50th Anniversary of its Parliament in Exile has been criticised as potentially damaging to Cambodia's national interest. Some going so far as to suggest that during this period when Cambodia is facing strong undue control from Vietnam which has unfortunately led to the fear that this will eventually lead to the swallowing of our motherland as a whole I, as a Cambodian politician should look up to China for protection.


I myself used to believe in this kind of propaganda but after many years of being involved in the affairs of human rights and the active promotion of democratic principles in our , as well as within the region and, having been involved in supporting our own struggle in the 1980s, against the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese armed forces, further compounded by my own personal testimony of suffering under regimes which were influenced by the policies of communist doctrine either through the practice of Mao or Uncle Ho, I, now believe differently. All countries have their own agenda and China has not proven to be a reliable ally and certainly does not advocate human rights even in its own country.

In the past, the Khmer Rouge were ideologically very close with China. They did not work to unify our people and strengthen our country's institutions but instead isolated Cambodia from the world and created damaging relationships with our neighbouring countries. The Khmer Rouge were dependent solely on China, and were keen to show their full support to their Chinese 'masters' by putting into practice, the Mao's communist ideology which resulted in the genocide of millions of our people and set Cambodia back to year zero. It was this serious of events that eventually gave the Vietnamese the 'excuse' to invade Cambodia and, to this present time China has not protected us.





Cops break up Beoung Kak demonstrators in front of Hun Xen's mansion


Report by Den Ayuthyea, Radio Free Asia
Video by Uon Chhin

Additional Photos from Anti-Hun Xen Demonstration in New York


 (All Photos: Courtesy of Thavary - Thank you very much!)






Cambodians will not be able to demonstrate against Hun Xen in Belgium, but … they will demonstrate with protesting Lao people anyway




Anti-Hun Xen demonstration in New York
03 October 2010
Sok Serey
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Komping Puoy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Organizers for the demonstration to protest against PM Hun Xen in Brussels, Belgium, indicated their disappointment because the Belgian authority did not authorize them to demonstrate against Hun Xen and the Cambodian government delegation that will attend the ASEM meeting on 04-05 October.

One of the demonstration organizers indicated that the reason they were prevented from demonstrating was because their request to hold the demonstration was sent in too close to the meeting date, and a decision could not be delivered on such short notice.

The organizers prepared their request letter on 29 September, and sent it in on 30 September, whereas the ASEM meeting will take place on 04-05 October already.

65-year-old Cheat Chea, one of the 4 demonstration organizers in Brussels, told RFA over the phone that his group will nevertheless hold anti-Hun Xen banners along with Lao demonstrators who received the authorization to hold their demonstration on 04 October.

Hun Xen departs for Belgium

02 October 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Komping Puoy


PM Hun Xen left for Belgium on 01 October to attend the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) which will be held between 04 and 05 October. On 29 October, Hun Xen declared in public that, in the name of an ASEAN facilitating country, he will give an opening speech, and on the concluding day of the meeting, he will also give a speech on the topic of “lasting development.” At the end of September and October, Hun Xen has a busy schedule involving international cooperations, such as the ASEAN-US meeting, the ASEM, and the upcoming ASEAN meeting in Hanoi.

By 2025, Cambodia will have a population of 1.5 million elderly




(Photo: Phil Borges, CARE)
02 October 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Komping Puoy

The director of the department of retirement pension of the ministry of Social Affairs indicated that, currently, Cambodia counts over 1 million people over the age of 60, and this number will increase to 1.5 million by 2025. Hol Phal, the director of retirement pension indicated that elderly people are defined by the UN as those who are over 60, and extremely old people are those who are over 80. The majority of elderly Cambodians live in the countryside where the living condition is tight and they lack understanding in hygiene and healthcare. In general, the elderly live with their daughters, or if they do not have daughters, they live with their sons or in the pagodas. In general, it is observed that elderly men have shorter life expectancy than elderly women.

Ex-Khmer Rouge in former stronghold play the numbers game

Oct 3, 2010




Comrade Mey Mak
By Robert Carmichael
DPA
So there remains the possibility that 67-year-old Comrade Duch will be the only person held accountable for one of the 20th century's most destructive regimes.
Pailin, Cambodia - 'They do not have blood on their hands,' said Mey Mak, Pailin's bespectacled deputy governor, of the four former Khmer Rouge leaders indicted last month by the war crimes court.

'Khieu Samphan, for example, he was responsible for the economy. Ieng Sary just went in and out of the country, and Ieng Thirith was only in charge of the social affairs ministry.'

'So it seems to me that they are victims,' he said of the movement's former head of state, foreign minister and minister of social affairs respectively.

The fourth person indicted was Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two, and regarded as the movement's chief ideologue.

Mey Mak, who worked for a decade as secretary to the Khmer Rouge's late leader Pol Pot, was speaking at a public meeting in late September in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin in western Cambodia.


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From Dictatorship to Democracy - Chapter One: Facing Dictatorship Reallistically


KI Media is starting a series on From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp whereby a chapter from this book in both English and Khmer is published every 2-day interval, with prior submissions listed in the menu bar for easy recall. The emphasis is that of KI Media. For its original complete text go to:
This book has been translated into KHMER and its full version is available at:

Be inspired! Be coordinated! And take action!

KI Media
. . . . .
Click here to read the Khmer version (PDF)
From Dictatorship to Democracy

CHAPTER ONE
Facing Dictatorship Realistically


In recent years various dictatorships — of both internal and external origin — have collapsed or stumbled when confronted by defiant, mobilized people. Often seen as firmly entrenched and impregnable, some of these dictatorships proved unable to withstand the concerted political, economic, and social defiance of the people.








Since 1980 dictatorships have collapsed before the predominantly nonviolent defiance(1) of people in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Slovenia, Madagascar, Mali, Bolivia, and the Philippines. Nonviolent resistance has furthered the movement toward democratization in Nepal, Zambia, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Haiti, Brazil, Uruguay, Malawi, Thailand, Bulgaria, Hungary, Nigeria, and various parts of the former Soviet Union (playing a significant role in the defeat of the August 1991 attempted hard-line coup d’état).

In addition, mass political defiance1 has occurred in China, Burma, and Tibet in recent years. Although those struggles have not brought an end to the ruling dictatorships or occupations, they have exposed the brutal nature of those repressive regimes to the world community and have provided the populations with valuable experience with this form of struggle.

The collapse of dictatorships in the above-named countries certainly has not erased all other problems in those societies: poverty, crime, bureaucratic inefficiency, and environmental destruction are often the legacy of brutal regimes. However, the downfall of these dictatorships has minimally lifted much of the suffering of the victims of oppression, and has opened the way for the rebuilding of these societies with greater political democracy, personal liberties, and social justice.

A continuing problem

There has indeed been a trend towards greater democratization and freedom in the world in the past decades. According to Freedom House, which compiles a yearly international survey of the status of political rights and civil liberties, the number of countries around the world classified as “Free” has grown significantly in recent years:(2)


1983 Free:54; Partly Free:47; Not Free:64
1993 Free:75; Partly Free:73; Not Free:38
2003 Free:89; Partly Free:55; Not Free:48
2009 Free: 89; Partly Free:62; Not Free:42

However, this positive trend is tempered by the large numbers of people still living under conditions of tyranny. As of 2008, 34% of the world’s 6.68 billion population lived in countries designated as “Not Free,”(3) that is, areas with extremely restricted political rights and civil liberties. The 42 countries in the “Not Free” category are ruled by a range of military dictatorships (as in Burma), traditional repressive monarchies (as in Saudi Arabia and Bhutan), dominant political parties (as in China and North Korea), foreign occupiers (as in Tibet and Western Sahara), or are in a state of transition.

Many countries today are in a state of rapid economic, political, and social change. Although the number of “Free” countries has increased in recent years, there is a great risk that many nations, in the face of such rapid fundamental changes, will move in the opposite direction and experience new forms of dictatorship. Military cliques, ambitious individuals, elected officials, and doctrinal political parties will repeatedly seek to impose their will. Coups d’état are and will remain a common occurrence. Basic human and political rights will continue to be denied to vast numbers of peoples.

Unfortunately, the past is still with us [CAMBODIA]. The problem of dictatorships is deep. People in many countries have experienced decades or even centuries of oppression, whether of domestic or foreign origin. Frequently, unquestioning submission to authority figures and rulers has been long inculcated. In extreme cases, the social, political, economic, and even religious institutions of the society — outside of state control — have been deliberately weakened, subordinated, or even replaced by new regimented institutions used by the state or ruling party to control the society. The population has often been atomized (turned into a mass of isolated individuals) unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other, or even to do much of anything at their own initiative.

The result is predictable: the population becomes weak, lacks self-confidence, and is incapable of resistance. People are often too frightened to share their hatred of the dictatorship and their hunger for freedom even with family and friends. People are often too terrified to think seriously of public resistance. In any case, what would be the use? Instead, they face suffering without purpose and a future without hope.

Current conditions in today’s dictatorships may be much worse than earlier. In the past, some people may have attempted resistance. Short-lived mass protests and demonstrations may have occurred. Perhaps spirits soared temporarily. At other times, individuals and small groups may have conducted brave but impotent gestures, asserting some principle or simply their defiance. However noble the motives, such past acts of resistance have often been insufficient to overcome the people’s fear and habit of obedience, a necessary prerequisite to destroy the dictatorship. Sadly, those acts may have brought instead only increased suffering and death, not victories or even hope.

Freedom through violence?

What is to be done in such circumstances? The obvious possibilities seem useless. Constitutional and legal barriers, judicial decisions, and public opinion are normally ignored by dictators. Understandably, reacting to the brutalities, torture, disappearances, and killings, people often have concluded that only violence can end a dictatorship. Angry victims have sometimes organized to fight the brutal dictators with whatever violent and military capacity they could muster, despite the odds being against them. These people have often fought bravely, at great cost in suffering and lives. Their accomplishments have sometimes been remarkable, but they rarely have won freedom. Violent rebellions can trigger brutal repression that frequently leaves the populace more helpless than before.

Whatever the merits of the violent option, however, one point is clear. By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority [author's emphasis]. The dictators are equipped to apply violence overwhelmingly. However long or briefly these democrats can continue, eventually the harsh military realities usually become inescapable. The dictators almost always have superiority in military hardware, ammunition, transportation, and the size of military forces. Despite bravery, the democrats are (almost always) no match.

When conventional military rebellion is recognized as unrealistic, some dissidents then favor guerrilla warfare. However, guerrilla warfare rarely, if ever, benefits the oppressed population or ushers in a democracy. Guerrilla warfare is no obvious solution, particularly given the very strong tendency toward immense casualties among one’s own people. The technique is no guarantor against failure, despite supporting theory and strategic analyses, and sometimes international backing. Guerrilla struggles often last a very long time. Civilian populations are often displaced by the ruling government, with immense human suffering and social dislocation.

Even when successful, guerrilla struggles often have significant long-term negative structural consequences. Immediately, the attacked regime becomes more dictatorial as a result of its countermeasures. If the guerrillas should finally succeed, the resulting new regime is often more dictatorial than its predecessor due to the centralizing impact of the expanded military forces and the weakening or destruction of the society’s independent groups and institutions during the struggle — bodies that are vital in establishing and maintaining a democratic society. Persons hostile to dictatorships should look for another option.

Coups, elections, foreign saviors?

A military coup d’état against a dictatorship might appear to be relatively one of the easiest and quickest ways to remove a particularly repugnant regime. However, there are very serious problems with that technique. Most importantly, it leaves in place the existing maldistribution of power between the population and the elite in control of the government and its military forces. The removal of particular persons and cliques from the governing positions most likely will merely make it possible for another group to take their place. Theoretically, this group might be milder in its behavior and be open in limited ways to democratic reforms. However, the opposite is as likely to be the case.

After consolidating its position, the new clique may turn out to be more ruthless and more ambitious than the old one [1997 coup by Hun Sen]. Consequently, the new clique — in which hopes may have been placed — will be able to do whatever it wants without concern for democracy or human rights. That is not an acceptable answer to the problem of dictatorship.

Elections are not available under dictatorships as an instrument of significant political change. Some dictatorial regimes, such as those of the former Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc, went through the motions in order to appear democratic. Those elections, however, were merely rigidly controlled plebiscites to get public endorsement of candidates already hand-picked by the dictators. Dictators under pressure may at times agree to new elections, but then rig them to place civilian puppets in government offices. If opposition candidates have been allowed to run and were actually elected, as occurred in Burma in 1990 and Nigeria in 1993, results may simply be ignored and the “victors” subjected to intimidation, arrest, or even execution. Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.

Many people now suffering under a brutal dictatorship, or who have gone into exile to escape its immediate grasp, do not believe that the oppressed can liberate themselves. They expect that their people can only be saved by the actions of others. These people place their confidence in external forces. They believe that only international help can be strong enough to bring down the dictators.

The view that the oppressed are unable to act effectively is sometimes accurate for a certain time period. As noted, often oppressed people are unwilling and temporarily unable to struggle because they have no confidence in their ability to face the ruthless dictatorship, and no known way to save themselves. It is therefore understandable that many people place their hope for liberation in others. This outside force may be “public opinion,” the United Nations, a particular country, or international economic and political sanctions.

Such a scenario may sound comforting, but there are grave problems with this reliance on an outside savior. Such confidence may be totally misplaced. Usually no foreign saviors are coming, and if a foreign state does intervene, it probably should not be trusted. A few harsh realities concerning reliance on foreign intervention need to be emphasized here:

• Frequently foreign states will tolerate, or even positively assist, a dictatorship in order to advance their own economic or political interests.

• Foreign states also may be willing to sell out an oppressed people instead of keeping pledges to assist their liberation at the cost of another objective.

• Some foreign states will act against a dictatorship only to gain their own economic, political, or military control over the country.

• The foreign states may become actively involved for positive purposes only if and when the internal resistance movement has already begun shaking the dictatorship, having thereby focused international attention on the brutal nature of the regime.

Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors.

International pressures can be very useful, however, when they are supporting a powerful internal resistance movement. Then, for example, international economic boycotts, embargoes, the breaking of diplomatic relations, expulsion from international organizations, condemnation by United Nations bodies, and the like can assist greatly. However, in the absence of a strong internal resistance movement such actions by others are unlikely to happen.

Facing the hard truth

The conclusion is a hard one. When one wants to bring down a dictatorship most effectively and with the least cost then one has four immediate tasks:

• One must strengthen the oppressed population themselves in their determination, self-confidence, and resistance skills;

• One must strengthen the independent social groups and institutions of the oppressed people;

• One must create a powerful internal resistance force; and

• One must develop a wise grand strategic plan for liberation and implement it skillfully.

A liberation struggle is a time for self-reliance and internal strengthening of the struggle group. As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880:

It is no use relying on the Government... You must only rely upon your own determination... [H]elp yourselves by standing together... strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak..., band yourselves together, organize yourselves... and you must win...

When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then and not till then will it be settled. (4)

Against a strong self-reliant force, given wise strategy, disciplinedand courageous action, and genuine strength, the dictatorship will eventually crumble. Minimally, however, the above four requirements must be fulfilled.

As the above discussion indicates, liberation from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people’s ability to liberate themselves. The cases of successful political defiance — or nonviolent struggle for political ends — cited above indicate that the means do exist for populations to free themselves, but that option has remained undeveloped. We will examine this option in detail in the following chapters. However, we should first look at the issue of negotiations as a means of dismantling dictatorships.
_______________________________

1 The term used in this context was introduced by Robert Helvey. “Political defiance” is nonviolent struggle (protest, noncooperation, and intervention) applied defiantly and actively for political purposes. The term originated in response to the confusion and distortion created by equating nonviolent struggle with pacifism and moral or religious “nonviolence.” “Defiance” denotes a deliberate challenge to authority by disobedience, allowing no room for submission. “Political defiance” describes the environment in which the action is employed (political) as well as the objective (political power). The term is used principally to describe action by populations to regain from dictatorships control over governmental institutions by relentlessly attacking their sources of power and deliberately using strategic planning and operations to do so. In this paper, political defiance, nonviolent resistance, and nonviolent struggle will be used interchangeably, although the latter two terms generally refer to struggles with a broader range of objectives (social, economic, psychological, etc.).

2 Freedom House, Freedom in the World, http://www.freedomhouse.org.

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