A Hundred Lotuses Blooming? - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 191

ted in Cambodia. Even during the UNTAC spring, most of the publications that emerged
were basically propaganda organs for political factions and prominent individuals within
them. 7 Instead of pursuing the news with professionalism and balance, most papers
shilled for their patrons, presenting a Punch-and-Judy narrative of Cambodian politics
full of caricatures and personal insults. But at least there was a diversity of viewpoints,
and a small but growing number of Cambodian journalists who did what they could to
hold the powerful to account.
As appendages of political parties, media outlets were quickly drawn into the political
crossfire of the 1990s. Journalists were threatened, attacked, and shot dead in the street.
Others were co-opted into progovernment publications. As Hun Sen's power grew and
violence receded, the opposition Khmer-language press was brought to heel in the courts,
where accusations of defamation or incitement were leveled by powerful people and then
rubber-stamped by pliant judges. With no chance of winning, the threat of jail or insur-
mountable fines fostered self-censorship and, by 2010, had forced the closure or co-opta-
tion of most significant opposition outlets.
In March 2008 the SRP-aligned Sralanh Khmer inverted its editorial line when its pub-
lisher (also a SRP steering committee member) defected to the CPP and took the publica-
tion with him. 8 In June, Dam Sith, another high-ranking SRP figure who edited Moneak-
seka Khmer , was arrested on defamation and disinformation charges after quoting com-
ments from Sam Rainsy accusing Foreign Minister Hor Namhong of crimes under the
Khmer Rouge. Despite being released a week later on bail, the charges hung over Sith
until mid-2009, when he wrote to the prime minister to express his “sincere apology” and
beg for the charges to be dropped. In exchange he promised to cease publication of the
newspaper. The charges disappeared and the last edition rolled off the presses in mid-July.
One observer told me that it marked “the beginning of the end for press freedom in Cam-
bodia.”
A few weeks earlier Hang Chakra, the editor of Khmer Machas Srok the other main
SRP outlet, had been sentenced to a year's prison and fined 9 million riels (US$2,250)
after being found guilty of disinformation for accusing Deputy Prime Minister Sok An
and some of his cronies of corruption. The crackdown took place in tandem with legal
attacks on opposition figures like Rainsy and Mu Sochua, who were prosecuted based
on complaints by high-ranking “excellencies.” The clamps were eventually released and
Moneakseka Khmer was relaunched the following year. But a line had been drawn in the
sand; everybody now knew just how far they could go.
Today there's no need for overt censorship. To start with, the majority of the Khmer-
language press is controlled by interests friendly to the CPP. The newspapers with the
largest circulations— Kampuchea Thmei , Koh Santepheap , Rasmei Kampuchea —all toe
the party line and the few small opposition papers that remain raise few alarms in Hun