Remembering the Cambodian Coup

As Cambodians prepared to vote in June’s commune election, Prime Minister Hun Sen delivered a warning. There would be civil war if his party lost, he said, adding later: “To ensure the lives of millions of people, we are willing to eliminate 100 or 200 people because we have seen bitter past experiences.”

His party didn’t lose, but for those of a certain age his threat was not an empty one. “Hun Sen is not democratic. I remember what happened in 1997,” Chhoun, a middle-aged tuk-tuk driver, told me at a rally for the main opposition party last month.

At dawn on July 5, 1997, Hun Sen’s forces launched a coup against their power-sharing partners in a coalition government. Phnom Penh’s airport was secured by loyal soldiers, as were the capital’s main boulevards. Thousands of Cambodians fled as the military rampaged through the city.

By that evening, the police and military had looted an estimated $50 million worth of goods from the capital. Even more troubling, dozens — some say hundreds — of people were executed. Many were tortured before a single bullet was placed in the back of their skull.

The following day, Hun Sen knew he had control over Cambodia, as he still does today. 

What caused the coup? A little history is necessary. In 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown by Vietnamese-backed defectors, including Hun Sen, who was promoted from foreign minister to prime minister in 1985. By the end of the decade, all remaining Vietnamese soldiers had left Cambodia and, in 1991, the United Nations took temporary control of the country under the auspices of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).

But when Cambodians went to the polls for the first time in decades in 1993, under the watch of UNTAC officials, most voted against the incumbent – the Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party, which had rebranded itself as the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in 1991. The royalist Funcinpec, led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, took 58 seats. The CPP won only 51.

Hun Sen kicked up a fuss. There was talk that some eastern provinces, controlled by CPP apparatchiks, would secede from Cambodia. Finally, it was agreed that power would be shared: Ranariddh would become first prime minister, and Hun Sen second prime minister.

The center, however, would not hold. Indeed, not everyone agrees the coup was a monumental event. “It wasn’t a big deal as it wasn’t anything new then,” said Ou Virak, head of the Phnom Penh-based think tank Future Forum.

In his book Hun Sen’s Cambodia, journalist Sebastian Strangio described the coalition government as a “political Frankenstein,” with CPP and Funcinpec each taking 11 ministries and one for a minor political party that came third in the 1993 election. Most were corrupt, with ministers from all parties expecting kick-backs, hindering economic progress. And neither of the two main parties was overly fond of Cambodia’s new democratic future.

By 1995, Funcinpec was imploding. In November that year, the party’s secretary general was arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate Hun Sen, which many believe to be dubious. At the Funcinpec party congress in March 1996, Ranariddh denounced the CPP as ineffective and, if concessions were not made, he threatened to dissolve the National Assembly that year and call another election. There were even rumors Ranariddh was preparing his own force majeure.

It ought not be forgotten that violence was never far away at the time. The Khmer Rouge was still murdering people in the countryside. And only a few months before the coup, in March, the opposition figure Sam Rainsy was almost killed when grenades were thrown into a crowd of his supporters. Sixteen people died in the attack and more than 150 were injured. Sam Rainsy survived thanks to his bodyguard, who died in the attack.

According to Ou Virak, one result of the 1997 coup was that it brought about a “prolonged period of growth and peace” for Cambodia. Indeed, Hun Sen cemented his position not only as the sole prime minister, but also as head of the CPP, which previously experienced factional rivalry. 

“Let’s be realistic,” a French diplomat was quoted as saying by the New Yorker at the time. “We get Hun Sen elected, not free and fair like in other countries, but OK good enough. Then we can have legitimacy, diplomacy, investment, order, and these people can get on with their lives.”

Investment certainly did begin flowing. By the 2000s, Cambodia witnessed annual GDP growth rates of over 6 percent. Extreme poverty was reduced. Essential infrastructure was rebuilt. Cambodia today, most people would say, hardly compares to the Cambodia of the 1990s.

But for those who prefer democracy and human rights over “realistic” ideas of stability, the 1997 coup set a troubling precedent. It showed that the armed forces could be used “to hold power” and election results didn’t have to be honored, said Sereiboth Noan, a blogger and member of political discussion group Politikoffee.

Indeed, the “stability” allowed the prime minister to consolidate his power. “Hostile Takeover,” a report produced last year by investigative NGO Global Witness claimed that the Hun Sen family has now amassed a combined wealth of between $500 million and $1 billion; perhaps even more. 

Australian political scientist Lee Morgenbesser, in an essay published earlier this year, said that Hun Sen has established a “personalist dictatorship.” He described Cambodia as having an “authoritarian regime characterized by Hun Sen’s personal control of the political system.”

Clearly, the root of Hun Sen and the CPP’s consolidation of power was the 1997 coup. Yet opinions are divided over how Cambodians remember the events. “[The] young generation may not know much about it, while the government never wants them to know it,” Sereiboth Noan said. However, he thinks the generation that lived through it “still remember.”

Sophal Ear, associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College, Los Angeles, agrees. “Those old enough to remember it do,” he said, and “those too young have no idea how bad things got.”

More pertinent, however, he added, was that the event still serves as a “reminder of what eliminating [between] 100 and 200 people looks like.”

Indeed, 20 years after the event, its implications can still be felt in Cambodia. Ranariddh fled the country during the coup but, according to an Economist article published at the time, “Hun Sen likes to emphasize that nobody forced [him] to leave and no one is stopping him from coming back – if he is ready to face the country's less than independent courts.”

Hun Sen offered the exiled Sam Rainsy the same deal only last month. Sam Rainsy, who resigned as president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in January, went into exile in November 2015. And, when Hun Sen in June revoked a ban on Sam Rainsy returning to Cambodia, which had been imposed last October, the prime minister reportedly mocked him as being a coward for not coming home straight away.

Sam Rainsy retorted: “Isn’t the coward the one in the position of a dictator who publicly says he is prepared to physically ‘suppress 100 to 200 persons’ – as he actually did when staging a military coup in July 1997 – in order to preserve his power?”

Another repercussion of the 1997 coup was that it allowed Phnom Penh and Beijing to renew their ties. Earlier, in 1988, Hun Sen had described China as “the root of everything that is evil” in Cambodia. This comment reflected Beijing’s support for the Khmer Rouge from the 1970s until its demise in the late 1990s.

But, in July 1996, Hun Sen accepted an invitation to Beijing. China even sent a plane to collect him and, before boarding, the prime minister said his trip would end “the suspicion of the past.” China, however, did not invite any official from Funcinpec to join the state visit. Beijing clearly knew Hun Sen was the man who pulled the strings in Cambodia. 

Hun Sen must also have known that his coup would anger the international community. After all, it had just spent $2 billion on restoring democracy in Cambodia and, just four years after the mission ended, Hun Sen was about to tarnish that democratic legacy.

As expected, the international community reacted to the 1997 coup by cutting all but humanitarian aid to Cambodia, despite the government’s demands. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) postponed the country’s ascension to the regional bloc until 1999.

China, however, came to Hun Sen’s help with its “no-strings attached” aid. Chinese investment in Cambodia tripled between 1997 and 1998. The following year, it became the single largest donor to Cambodia’s state budget, pledging $257 million. The 1997 coup, some analysts contend, set the stage for Cambodia’s suzerain relationship with China. Today, Phnom Penh is Beijing’s most loyal ally in Southeast Asia. China, in return, is now Cambodia’s largest provider of aid and loans.   

Moreover, in recent years the Hun Sen government has become more confident in intimidating civil society members and political opponents, commentators say, because it knows China will make up for any shortfall in aid from the West, which typically kicks up a fuss when rights are infringed upon.

“It was really a lesson for the authorities: diversify and get a new sugar daddy named China,” said Sophal Ear.