Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ation by throwing up his arms and jetting off to Pyongyang or Beijing in protest, but his
son stayed in Phnom Penh and signed the bill. His cooperation sent the message that the
king would not obstruct CPP policies, however controversial. Like the remaining mon-
archs of Europe, he would play a strictly constitutional role.
For the second time Sihamoni became a prisoner in his palace. The man holding the
keys this time was an unlikely figure. Kong Sam Ol, the Minister of the Royal Palace, was
an agronomist who graduated from the University of Georgia in the 1960s and had been
hailed as one of the brightest young officials in the Lon Nol government. A slick, grey-
haired figure with red-framed glasses, Sam Ol survived the Khmer Rouge and served as
minister of agriculture during the 1980s. Just before Sihanouk was crowned king in 1993,
he was appointed as Minister of the Royal Palace, a post that he has since used to bring
the palace under the party's firm control. One former Asian diplomat described Sam Ol
as “a very dedicated CPP man,” put in place to “manage” the king. Throughout the 1990s
Sam Ol vied with Sihanouk's minders for control over the royal schedule and appoint-
ment topic. He eventually gained the upper hand after the abdication, when the king's
squad of grim North Korean bodyguards returned home and were replaced by Cambodian
guards taking their orders from the CPP.
37
Sam Ol shadowed Sihamoni's every move. He accompanied the king on most of his
trips overseas and closely chaperoned him on his other trips beyond the palace walls. He
lurked in the background of royal photographs. At his request, Sihamoni granted audi-
ences and royal honors to tycoons and other ruling party flunkies. One source close to
the palace said the king clashed with his minister “on a weekly basis” over these impos-
itions, but had no real power to refuse his requests. Sam Ol was also the brains behind
Sihanouk's tightly scripted funeral. During the procession he sat on a float behind Hun
Sen, barking orders into a two-way radio, while his daughter's construction company was
contracted to build the royal crematorium.
38
King Sihamoni played his constitutional role to the letter, putting his royal rubber-
stamp to amnesties and appointments requested by Hun Sen, and furnishing the CPP brass
with royal titles and honors. While Sihamoni continues to cut ribbons, sign papers, and
fulfill the ceremonial duties of kingship, the weak and downtrodden retain an unfailing
sense for where the real power lies. In the old days they gathered outside the gates of the
Royal Palace, holding portraits of the king, begging on the monarch's mercy. But more
recent years have been marked by a stranger sight: clusters of poor rice farmers sitting
in the park outside Hun Sen's mansion near Phnom Penh's Independence Monument,
clutching portraits of the prime minister and first lady, gazing up at walls bristling with
CCTV cameras. With little place else to turn, they put their faith in the Peasant King.
