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Nov 10, 2009
By Craig Guthrie
Asia Times Online

HUA HIN, Thailand - Cambodia's long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen, with a thumping parliamentary majority and a war-traumatized electorate fearful of change, may well have one of the safest jobs in world politics. This certainly seems the case in comparison with neighboring Thailand, where the premiership has changed hands four times in the past two years.

Nonetheless, Hun Sen is likely grateful for the popularity boost Thailand's government may have handed him through its heated response to his recent praise of and job offer to former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Hun Sen appointed Thaksin, who has been criminally convicted on corruption charges, as an economic advisor. The latter, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup, now lives in exile. Last month, Hun Sen hailed Thaksin as a "great friend" and a victim of a politically compromised judicial system.

The Thai government has viewed the offer as interference in its internal affairs and downgraded diplomatic relations. Angry protests have erupted at the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok, and both nations last week recalled their respective ambassadors.

Armed troops have also lined up to defend the Thai Embassy in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, but few Cambodians expect a repeat of the 2003 anti-Thai riots, which saw the embassy burned to the ground and Thailand ready airplanes to evacuate its nationals in a dispute sparked by a Thai actress' alleged comments over national ownership of Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple.

Some Cambodians, accustomed to Hun Sen's well-known tactic of bolstering his political clout by offering loyalists plum advisor posts, see the latest spat in less emotive terms. In the leadup to 2008 elections, Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) attracted many high-level defectors from the main opposition, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), to join his army of over 100 well-paid advisors.

Hun Sen has said he would refuse to honor a bilateral extradition treaty with Thailand that would require him to arrest and deport Thaksin, who faces a two-year jail sentence in Thailand on the corruption conviction. Although Thaksin remains a divisive figure with great sway in Thai politics, Bangkok's reaction may be over more than political insecurities.

Billionaire Thaksin was appointed by royal decree last Wednesday as an advisor to both Hun Sen and Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni. He is scheduled to land in Phnom Penh on November 12 to deliver a lecture to Cambodian economic officials and there are rumors circulating that he might meet with a group of Thai "red-shirt" protest leaders near the Thai border.

In Cambodia, the monarchy is seen as fair game for criticism by both the media and public. After observing for years former king Sihanouk's extravagant lifestyle and constant shifts to ensure his political survival - as well as political forays by other royal princes and princesses - many Cambodians are skeptical of the monarchy. The situation is very different in Thailand, where the monarchy is widely revered and where any perceived criticism of the crown can result in harsh jail sentences. One motivation cited by military coup-makers for their 2006 putsch was that Thaksin was disloyal to the crown - charges he's denied.

The differences between the two nations' histories and economic situations seem personified by their leaders. Thailand, one of the region's wealthiest nations and a member of the influential Group of 20, is led by Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Cambodia, still impoverished after a three-decade civil war and traumatized by the killings of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, is led by Hun Sen, a once barefoot temple boy who lived on handouts from Buddhist monks before becoming a teenage soldier. He first fought for the Khmer Rouge - a struggle that cost him his left eye - and then as part of the Vietnamese offensive that liberated the nation from the same radical Maoist regime in 1979.

Abhisit may have had a comparatively privileged upbringing, but Hun Sen enjoys political advantages. A seasoned leader, Hun Sen is in his 25th year in office - making his one of the longest-running premierships in the world. He led the CPP to 58% of the vote at general elections held in 2008, eclipsing widely the opposition SRP.

Abhisit, on the other hand, took charge last year as a result of Thailand's Constitutional Court disbanding the Thaksin-aligned ruling People's Power Party (PPP), which defeated his Democrat party at 2007 polls, on electoral fraud charges. His predecessor, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, was in the job for only 75 days. Somchai's PPP predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, lasted only nine months after he was ousted by a Thai court on corruption charges.

It is not the first time that Hun Sen has capitalized on political turmoil in Thailand, especially since bilateral tensions were re-ignited last year over the contested ownership of the land surrounding the ancient Preah Vihear temple, perched atop a steep cliff on the Thai-Cambodian border. When a United Nations body sided with Cambodia's claim, Thai nationalists ran across the border, prompting a military build-up by both sides.

Phnom Penh first appealed to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and then to the UN Security Council to take note of the issue, taking the diplomatic high road. It is unclear how the Preah Vihear dispute would have played out if Thaksin, also Hun Sen's golfing buddy, had still been in charge in Thailand.

Some critics say the current tension is in part due to false assurances given in the past by Thaksin to Hun Sen about border delineation near the temple and other overlapping claims by the two countries. Thaksin's critics claim that he was willing to offer territorial concessions to Hun Sen in exchange for personal business interests, claims the exiled former premier has denied.

Thaksin last year proposed a multi-million dollar deal with Hun Sen to develop Cambodia's southwestern maritime province of Koh Kong, telling Thai media that he wanted to turn it into a "second Hong Kong". Hun Sen hailed the proposal as an opportunity to reduce poverty in Cambodian-Thai border areas.

Hun Sen's main domestic opponent says the premier's overtures to Thaksin are not motivated by scoring political points or a desire to uphold Khmer nationalism, but instead are due to pressure being exerted on him by Vietnam, the invading nation which initially installed him as premier in 1985 and which the opposition still claims has influence over the CCP government.

Sam Rainsy has called the argument between Thaksin and Abhisit a "political game" to turn the Cambodian public's attention to the west, in the direction of Thailand, while ignoring the east, towards Vietnam. Antagonism among Cambodians - over inward migration and alleged land grabbing - is much higher towards Vietnam, which occupied Cambodia between 1979 and 1989, than towards Thailand, which has made less controversial service-sector inroads into the country.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Hun Sen is trying to show that he is the defender of the national interests of Cambodia and that Thailand is the real enemy of Cambodia and not Vietnam," said United States-based Cambodian economist Naranhkiri Tith.

When the Thai government last week recalled its ambassador, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban asked what the Hun Sen government would say if Rainsy were appointed as the Thai government's economic adviser. Rainsy replied, "It would never cross my mind to serve a foreign government that is at odds with my own country."

Rainsy, in referring to an unnamed "foreign government", could at the same time have been making an allusion to the Cambodian prime minister, having constantly charged that Hun Sen is a "puppet" of Vietnam who consistently undermines the national interest to maintain close ties to Hanoi.

Hun Sen's comments suggest his provocative moves towards Thaksin may be linked to his perennial mistrust of Rainsy in a domestic political spat that has spilled over into international relations. On his arrival in Thailand for the 15th ASEAN summit in late October, Hun Sen said, "If Sam Rainsy can come to Thailand as he did recently to make statements against the Cambodian government, why can my good friend Thaksin not come to Cambodia?"

Hun Sen was referring to Rainsy's critical comments on his government's human-rights record and economic management when he spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand in Bangkok in September. There, Rainsy echoed claims made by civil society groups that since the CPP won the 2008 election, it has cracked down in authoritarian fashion on dissenting voices, including journalists, civil society and opposition politicians.

Rainsy also raised sharp questions about the underlying health of Cambodia's financial system in the wake of the global crisis, insinuating that Hun Sen had motivation to divert national attention from his government's troubles and towards an old adversary in Thailand.

Abhisit's popularity soared after downgrading relations with Cambodia, according to one poll. Yet some analysts feel he's misplayed his diplomatic cards. "Abhisit has also made mistakes," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

"Allowing Sam Rainsy to speak out in Bangkok against Hun Sen and not doing enough to rein in right-wing groups who demonstrated at Preah Vihear areas certainly irked Hun Sen and rubbed the Cambodians the wrong way. This is why Hun Sen is unlikely to face a domestic uproar at home for being seen as standing up to Thailand."