Asean called on to ‘press’ PM at summit
Kingdom’s role in the Great War recalled
AS THE world on Sunday commemorated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1, or the Great War – originally known in French as Le Guerre Europeenne – back in 1914, the first dispatches to Phnom Penh from France requested 4,500 Cambodians to join the French war effort.
“That number was immediately lowered to 3,500,” said Henri Eckert, assistant professor of Indochinese history at Universite des Antilles in Martinique. “It’s impossible to tell how many Cambodians went to Europe.”
The smaller Cambodian volunteer contingent helped defend their colonial rulers under the larger banner of the Indochinese army, which also included Vietnamese and Laotians.
“It was a political project to unite French Indochina to make people believe that [France’s] control was natural and not the result of chaos and conquest. It would have been seen as rightful that Asia put aside its differences to fight alongside the French as Indochinese people.”
“Many of the volunteers were intellectuals,” Eckert said. “They thought that if Indochina showed support for France then they would gain independence more easily.
“During that time, Cambodians had to carry a passport if they travelled 19km from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) on Friday called on the leaders of Asean member s t at es t o “press” Prime Minister Hun Sen on human rights issues during the Asean summit this week in Singapore.
In response, a government spokesperson called its chairman a “demon”.
Charles Santiago, APHR board chairman and a Malaysian parliamentarian said: “Human rights are under threat throughout Southeast Asia. Asean’s destructive noninterference principle means that the bloc has been both unwilling and unable to take a stand against violations.
“This lack of action must end – human rights should take centre stage in Singapore next week. Asean leaders cannot let the Cambodian government simply get away with dismantling democracy.
“They must push Prime Minister Hun Sen to end his crackdown on dissent and hold new, genuinely free and fair elections.”
APHR claimed that Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) had won all 125 seats in the National Assembly following a fraudulent election in July.
It said the CPP had increased repressive t acti cs against opponents by dismantling independent media, harassing and jailing rights activists, dissolving the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and ar re s t i ng i t s leader Kem Sokha.
It added that after the July e l e c t i on, onl y piecemeal concessions were offered by releasing a limited number of political prisoners, while an unspecified law remained.
The group also called for Asean leaders to put the Rohingya issue in Myanmar on their agenda.
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan hit back.
“Firstly, I would call [Santiago] a demon who is going against Cambodian citizens. He doesn’t have a role to meddle in the Kingdom’s internal affairs. Secondly, he is a demon who is going against the Asean spirit by interfering.
“He is just a puppet of the media. If he was a real politi- cian, he should care about his country and see if there was any human rights violation. This should be what he cares about,” he said.
Siphan said APHR is just an NGO consisting of minority parliamentarians whose parties had mostly never won an election.
Pr i me Minister Hun Sen wi l l at tend t he 33rd Asea n Su mmit f rom Tuesday t o Thursday i n Si ngapore, a n announcement by the Minister of Foreig n A f f a i r s a nd I nter nat iona l Cooperat ion said on Friday.
their homes. So going to Europe was profound in itself.”
French postal officers intercepted letters (which are now in the French national archives) depicting Cambodian soldiers’ joy in seeing Frenchman shining shoes or recounting sexual liaisons with European women.
“There are some very colourful letters, people describe seeing aeroplanes for the first time or describing tanks and submarines in very naive ways,” said Eckert.
Others were motivated by a desire to see the world and to earn money, not unlike many recruits who join the armed forces today.
A World War 1 document in The National Archives of Cambodia from 1916 outlines the bodia’s World War 1 casualties occurred in armament facilities.
“The number of Cambodian workers was greater [than that of soldiers], and factory labourers didn’t have the same medical care as soldiers who fought in the field.
“Empirical evidence suggests Cambodians fought for France in the region of Champagne as well as at the battle of the Chemin des Dames and on the battlefront of Macedonia in 1917,” said Mathilde Teruya, political press counsellor for the French embassy in Cambodia.
“Every [Cambodian] soldier, nurse and worker deserve the gratitude of France for having supported it during one of the worst times of its history. Certain estimates put the number of Cambodians who lost their
Certain estimates put the number of Cambodians who lost their lives in combat to 150