I don’t like saying that the majority of Americans are ignorant when it comes to foreign policy, but when you read some of the statistics that were listed in a recent article in the magazine named after this very subject, it’s disconsolately hard to deny. Take my mother for example. She is the type of […]
“In life, men are either kings or pawns.” -Napoleon Bonaparte Not to underestimate the cult of personality which Cambodia’s late King Father Norodom Sihanouk engendered, approximately one million people reminded us of his revered presence in the country by lining the streets from Pochentong International Airport all the way to the Royal Palace on […]
It was 1940 and the City of Lights had gone dark. Men of importance of Vichy France were meeting in order to decide how to manage their overseas colonies and protectorates in light of the new global reality — Hitler strolling along the Champs-Élysées as the Nazis occupied Paris. In Indochina, specifically Cambodia, many members […]
Over the past weeks and months, in the shadows of other, more prominent global events, and with the world’s attention focused on other places, Cambodia has ceased being a democracy. If that statement sounds exaggerated, allow me to recap some of the more infamous shenanigans which have turned this former war torn nation into a […]
Every so often an article comes to my attention that is so repugnant, so disingenuous, and so morally outrageous that it requires me to temporarily drop any and all projects that I may have been currently working on so that I may prioritize a response. Such was the case with a recent post on the […]
I step through the doors of the packed out Pyongyang restaurant on Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh and catch the eye of a very beautiful young Korean waitress. She traverses the crowded dining room and comes over to me with a bright smile on her face. “Table for two?” she asks, seeing my friend behind […]
Southeast Asia’s youngest and poorest country, Timor-Leste, went to the polls on Saturday in the second round of parliamentary elections that will determine their next government as well as whether UN peacekeepers might be able to leave the country by year’s end. According to the World Bank, nearly half of the country’s 1.1 million people […]
I can recall being in graduate school in New York having a conversation about Third World development with a fellow student, an American originally from Connecticut. At the time, the end of 2010, I had just returned from a stint with the South African Human Rights Commission and was pretty sour on the potential for […]
By Scott Bleiweis and Tim LaRocco Recently Scott connected with fellow FPA blogger and journalist Tim LaRocco. Tim lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and shares his perspective on some issues raised in Scott’s recent post about chances for democracy in Cambodia. Tim writes, “Having been a resident of Phnom Penh for awhile now, I have had […]
While the North African revolutions of the past year and a half swept away several long-serving dictators, sadly rulers with an ironclad hold on power remain in various parts of the world. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen has ruled the country since 1985 and shows no signs of relinquishing power. He is the longest-serving […]
I’m sure most of us are familiar with this famous quote from Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” Personally, I prefer the much more humorous George Costanza line in a Seinfeld episode when Jerry is trying to defeat a polygraph test being given to him […]
The director of a well-known Cambodian environmental organization seeking to highlight governmental negligence and corruption regarding the issue of illegal logging was brutally gunned down by military police this past Wednesday night. Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group (and a personal friend of this author), was shot and killed in a car […]
Safe inside his armored motorcade and surrounded by nearly two dozen police motorcycle escorts, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao traversed north along Sothearos Boulevard in Phnom Penh this past Saturday morning, passing a 20 foot portrait of his face as well as one of his wife’s as his entourage made its way towards the Peace Palace […]
The 2012 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit will take place April 3rd and 4th in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. As the new chair of the regional bloc for the 2012 year, Cambodia will have an opportunity to show off its capital city’s latest developments, both socioeconomic and political. The streets are already being decked […]
The extent of change in a country’s foreign policy during the transition to a new regime can sometimes be striking. It is a proposition which will be played out in Thailand over the coming weeks and months as the new Pheu Thai-led coalition begins to govern following its electoral victory last week. The result of […]