Democracy, How To Make It Happen?
How to Build Democracy in Cambodia.
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From: Kh. Kung (baphuon@aol.com)
Subject: Democracy, How To Make It Happen?
Newsgroups: soc.culture.cambodia
Date: 2003-05-02 08:31:15 PST

At the end of World War II, in 1945, in order to assure a lasting universal Peace, the American policymakers decided to build democracy in their former enemies Germany and Japan.

At that time, several pundits and isolationists argued that German and Japanese culture did not fit for democracy.

German and Japanese people were renowned as a very disciplined people capable of extreme sacrifice. That collective discipline was the strength of their nation. German and Japanese culture were the credo of the nazism/fascism. For this reason, the pundits and their allied said, German and Japanese people were too submissive and too disciplined, therefore, they were incapable to revolt against the order of their authoritarian rulers. They are not fit for a genuine multiparty system.

But History had shown that those pundits and political thinkers were wrong.

To make democracy happen in Germany and Japan, American policymakers, especially American Army general, had defined clearly and implemented implacably a set of principles of governance for almost seven years, then passed all the power to German and Japanese rulers. A decade later, democracy took root and grew strongly in Germany and Japan. Germany and Japan became free, peaceful and prosper.

The same principles were implemented in Taiwan and South Korea under the American pressure. One generation later Taiwan and South Korea became free and democratic.

Muslim world was alienated, entrapped and kept in hostage by a dozen of authoritarian rulers. Turkey is the only democratic county of the Muslim world. Oil resources enhanced their grip of power. Up until now, oil resources served only to create a parasite bureaucracy and enrich a click of crony but never served their people and never help the democratic system to grow up. Oil money worked always to destroy democracy. After September 11, 2001, American neoconservative decided to make a political change in Muslim world by building democracy in Iraq first.

It is very interesting for us Cambodian to scrutiny and study the set of principles that the American neoconservative would implement in Iraq to build Iraqi democracy.

Those principles had transformed successfully the former fascist regime of Germany and Japan and the authoritarian regime of Taiwan and South Korea into democracy. To make democracy happen in Cambodia, that set of principles of governance should be implemented implacably also in Cambodia. If it works for Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea it should work also for Iraq and Cambodia.

Those principles are:
1. Removal of the Nazi/Fascist/Leninist regime by force is necessary.
2. Create a security force, nonpartisan (in the case of Germany, Japan and Iraq, it was the US Armed forces who assured and enforced laws and order). In Cambodia, in the 1950s, because the nonpartisan security forces in service of law was so vital for the survival of our nation, Ganak Sangh Raj under the leadership of Samdech Sangh Chuon Nath, and especially Samdech Prah Wannarat Iv Tuot and Achar Souk, a team of politico-military thinkers, led the Buddhist movement to the creation of an armed force nonpartisan in the service of law and order to protect our land and our nation. All these chief monks were Khmer Krom. They had to change their names and hide their identity. They had to fight against French colonialism and at the time the Vietnamese Communists who occupied already Cambodia. Achar Souk, in his struggle for the liberation of Cambodia, was denounced by Vietnamese agents and was defrocked and imprisoned several times by French authorities.

3. Create an independent judiciary system. The security force should be under the total control of the judiciary system, as the FBI under the total control of the Justice Ministry.
4. Property rights. Absolute respect of property rights.
5. Distribution of lands to the families without land. Distributing land to families without land was implemented in Japan despite the tough opposition of Japanese Monarchy and landlords. In Taiwan, the US had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy land from the landlords to distribute those parcels of land to the families without land. The same policy was implemented also in South Korea.

6. Free market economy. Respect of Property rights and distribution of land to the families without land were the sine qua none condition for the development of free market economy. Without an independent judiciary system, there will be no property rights. Without the respect of property rights there will be no contract, no free trade, no free market. Property rights and land ownership were the fundamental base of free market economy. To defend our land is to defend our nation.

Once these above institutions were created, functioned and strengthened for a period of time, then democracy can grow and prosper. Without the support and protection of the above institutions, democracy cannot survive to the first assault of an authoritarian ruler.

Zakaria of Newsweek wrote: "Democracy is a luxury." Democracy can grow and survive only after having set up first, then implemented and strengthened the nonpartisan security forces, the independent judiciary system and free market economy.

In Iraq, the Shiite that constituted of 60% of the population was the only political organization that had ten thousand of well armed and trained feddayins. The Shiite would win any election organized at this moment. But once the Shiite grab the reins of power, the Shiite would govern like the Iranian Herzbola, that means, the Shiite would annihilate all opponents and might suppress all elections afterward. So in this case, Iraq democracy cannot survive to the assault of a dictator. Freedom and Democracy are two different concepts.

Don't confound freedom and democracy. Imagine a room with nine men and one woman. Suppose that nine men vote for the rape of that woman. The decision is democratic but it did not represent the freedom. This is an except from a political book.

To build democracy is also to govern. The United Nations were not fit to build democracy. So don't ask the United Nations to build democracy in Cambodia.

Mark Steyn of National Post, April 28, 2003 wrote:
<<.[To have a proof of how the United Nations were unfit to govern], at best, you'll end up with Cambodia, where the UN has colluded in the nullification of democracy, or the Balkans, where once-functioning jurisdictions are reduced to the level of geopolitical tenements with the UN as slum landlord in perpetuity. At worst, you'll wind up with the West Bank "refugee" "camps," the most extreme reminder of how the UN has little interest in solving problems, only in establishing bureaucracies to manage them.

Baphuon - (Update Jan-Fev2005)