Circa 1967: Sangkum Reastr Niyum youths |
Feb 7, 2013
By Sebastian Strangio
Asia Times Online
A few days before the September 24 coronation of King Sihamoni, Kong Sam Ol, an American-educated agronomist and current CPP Politburo member, was appointed minister of the Royal Palace, a position he has held ever since. Sources close to the palace say the minister has kept King Sihamoni under increasingly close surveillance, preventing him from meeting the people or traveling freely around the country.
PHNOM PENH - To the boom of artillery and the crackle of fireworks,
Cambodians bid a final farewell this week to their beloved King Father
Norodom Sihanouk. Across the country, citizens paused for a moment of
silence as Sihanouk's embalmed body was cremated in a lavish new
structure built on hallowed ground next to the walls of the Royal
Palace. Dozens of foreign dignitaries, including French Prime Minister
Jean-Marc Ayrault and Prince Akishino of Japan, were on hand to witness
the passing of Cambodia's last God-King, who died in Beijing on October
15, two weeks shy of his 90th birthday.
As evening fell, the crematorium, a 47-meter-high tower topped with a
golden spire, blazed with thousands of tiny lights as King Norodom
Sihamoni and Queen Mother Monineath, both clad in white, entered its
inner chamber. Half an hour later, Sihamoni symbolically lit his
father's sandalwood oil-soaked body and the former king was engulfed in
flames, ascending in a cloud of smoke to the haunting strains of
Cambodia's traditional funeral music. The following day, some of
Sihanouk's ashes were scattered in the city's churning river waters; the remainder of his ashes will be kept in a diamond-encrusted urn inside the Royal Palace.
So
departed one of history's great characters and iconoclasts, a reluctant
monarch who came to personify his country's violent and turbulent
journey through the 20th century. Born in Phnom Penh on October 31, 1922, Sihanouk oversaw Cambodia's transition from French colonialism to independence, and then its descent into the maelstrom of civil war and the brutal dictatorship of the communist Khmer Rouge.
Along the way, he served in a bewildering array of roles, first as
king, and subsequently as prime minister, head of state, non-aligned
leader, communist figurehead, leader-in-exile, and finally as
constitutional monarch until his abdication in 2004.
On Monday, tens of thousands of white-clad Cambodians gathered in a park
a few blocks from the palace, where they awaited a chance to pay their
final respects to their beloved Samdech Eav, or "Monsignor Papa". "I
think a lot about him," said Saem Yeam, 77, who grew up under Sihanouk's
rule in the 1950s and 1960s. Clasping her hands together in a gesture
of reverence, Yeam recalled the Sihanouk years as an island of peace
before the turmoil of war and upheaval. "In that time, all of his
children were very happy and educated. Everything was being developed.
Everything was perfect," she said.
Despite the outpouring of nostalgia, Cambodia's centuries-old monarchy faces an uncertain future. Since
2004, when Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his son Norodom Sihamoni, the
monarchy has been elbowed aside by Prime Minister Hun Sen, the former
communist who has run Cambodia with a firm hand for the past 28 years.
In addition to being a moving send-off for the King Father, this week's
funeral ceremonies were also something of a victory lap for Hun Sen and
his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) - the successful culmination
of the party's long effort to bind the monarchy in ceremony, shackle it
with praise, and assert itself as the sole protector and heir of
Sihanouk's royal legacy.
Since
1979, when the CPP (then known as the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary
Party) was installed in power by Vietnam after it overthrew the Khmer
Rouge regime, Sihanouk's popularity has posed a persistent threat to its
power. During
the 1980s, when Sihanouk was part of a resistance coalition fighting
the regime in Phnom Penh, the CPP-run press denounced the ex-king as an
"exploitative" feudal reactionary opposed to the interests of the
working class. The CPP's attitude started
to shift as peace talks advanced in the late 1980s: when Sihanouk
returned to Cambodia from exile in November 1991, shortly after the
signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Hun Sen rode with him into town past
ecstatic crowds. In 1992, the CPP party mouthpiece Pracheachon praised
Sihanouk and described the CPP as the "little brother" of Sihanouk's
earlier regime.
Gilded cage
At the same time, however, the CPP also sought to restrict the returning monarch's ambitions. After he was re-crowned king in September 1993, it went to great lengths to confine Sihanouk to the roles laid down in the new constitution, which specified that the king reign but not rule.
"From the beginning, the CPP saw the danger of giving the monarchy a
free reign, because of the popularity of the King Father with the rural
population," said Julio Jeldres, Sihanouk's official biographer. "So
from the beginning, everything was tightly controlled."
A few days before the September 24 coronation of King Sihamoni, Kong
Sam Ol, an American-educated agronomist and current CPP Politburo
member, was appointed minister of the Royal Palace, a position he has
held ever since. Sources close to the palace say the
minister has kept King Sihamoni under increasingly close surveillance,
preventing him from meeting the people or traveling freely around the
country.
Sihanouk initially bucked against these restrictions, hoping to maneuver
himself back into the political game. After several failed attempts to
form his own government after the UN-backed 1993 elections, Sihanouk
found himself increasingly bereft of power. His son, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh, won the election and ruled in coalition with Hun Sen, but
increasingly bucked and ignored his father's wishes. In July 1997, Hun
Sen overthrew Ranariddh in a bloody coup de force, an event that marked a
further diminution of Sihanouk's power.
Henceforth, the king spent an increasing amount of time outside the
country, particularly in Beijing, where he penned sorrowful and acerbic
commentaries lamenting the corruption and injustice of Hun Sen's rule.
Hun Sen, at the same time, donned Sihanouk's mantle, replicating his
hours-long speeches, school construction drives, and close
identification with Cambodia's "little people".
"Hun Sen has always wanted to become the Sihanouk of his era, and somehow he has succeeded," said Prince Sisowath Thomico, one of Sihanouk's former aides.
Realizing that the game was up, Sihanouk finally stepped down in 2004,
ceding the throne to his son Sihamoni and the political arena to Hun
Sen, who he increasingly took to describing as the "son" he never had.
"Sihanouk had one big ambition that remained unfulfilled and that was to
rule over a prosperous and peaceful Cambodia," said Benny Widyono,
author of Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United
Nations in Cambodia. "He had realized he couldn't beat Hun Sen. His
lifelong ambition remained unfulfilled."
King Sihamoni, a former ballet dancer who spent years as Cambodia's
ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, has shown little taste for the political
game, leaving politics to Hun Sen and his CPP dominated government. In
the end, with Hun Sen consolidating his own power and marginalizing
royalist rivals like Ranariddh, Sihanouk chose to abdicate in a bid to
ensure the monarchy would survive beyond his own death.
"He had to make sure the monarchy would survive. His only choice was to
abdicate and have the council of the throne to elect a new king," said
Thomico. But
if the ascension of Sihamoni saved the monarchy from Hun Sen's attacks,
it also gave the CPP what they had wanted all along: a king who would
stay out of politics. "If I was to write a book about Sihamoni I would
call it The Reluctant King," said Widyono. "He fits Hun Sen's bill very well."
As a result, Sihanouk's passing has been politically muted - a final
lavish seal on the monarchy's withdrawal from political life. And the
CPP has spared no expense in asserting itself as the sole guardian of
his legacy. The
government reportedly spent US$5 million building the soaring
crematorium that was the centerpiece of the weekend's tightly-scripted
ceremonies. On Friday, a lavish funeral procession
bore Sihanouk's casket through the streets of Phnom Penh for one last
time, while loudspeakers rigged across town broadcast eulogies of the
King Father and long lists of his achievements.
In addition, the
government minted a new title for the departed King Father, who will
henceforth be known by the honorific Preah Borom Ratanak Koad, as well
as a new 1,000 riel (US$0.24) note bearing an image of the golden
funeral carriage which bore his body home from Beijing in October.
(The only country in the world to boast a ruin on its national flag,
Cambodia is now likely the first to have a funeral on its currency).
Then came Monday's beautiful cremation, a final flourish of tradition
that drew a firm line between the fading era of Sihanouk and the rising
era of Hun Sen.
"Hun Sen says, give them the last rites," said one former Asian diplomat. "After that, the monarchy will be lost in oblivion."
Phay Siphan, a government spokesman, said that under the Constitution,
the king had no political power but still retained a "power of
conscience". Government officials meet regularly with King Sihamoni to
discuss the state of the country, he said, but denied the government
kept the palace on a short leash. "It's groundless. Why would we monitor
it?" Siphan said. "We have no power to decide for the king."
For now, many Cambodians remain fixated on the past, mourning Sihanouk's
life and achievements. Since Friday, Mao Sovann, 54, has sold hundreds
of commemorative photographs of the King Father. Spread out in front of
her in the park, they show Sihanouk as a young man, haughty in the early
years of his reign, and Sihanouk in suit and tie, at the cherubic peak
of his power in the mid-1960s. Other portraits show Sihanouk and his
wife in the black pajamas of the Khmer Rouge in 1973, and later in a
formal portrait alongside their son Sihamoni.
"Everybody loves him and wants to keep photos for their children and
grandchildren," Sovann said. "The next generation who didn't know him,
we will show them the pictures." And as for the future? "I don't know
what's going on," she said. "Right now there's only one thing I know: Prime Minister Hun Sen - he's in charge of everything."
Sebastian Strangio is a journalist based in Phnom Penh who
covers the Asia-Pacific and is currently working on a book about modern
Cambodia. He may be reached atsebastian.strangio@gmail.com.
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