By Kari Barber
The cambodia daily

Reuters

A bomb explodes in the Favour Hotel on July 4, 2001, in Phnom Penh, the second explosion to rock the capital that Wednesday. Three people were killed and 11 injured in the two blasts.

At the end of the year 2001, a silence fell over the nation. Perhaps the country only seemed silent in contrast to the hustle and bustle of progress that the first of the year had promised.

It may also be that the silence was due in part to a lack of off-key 1980s tunes being belted by typically inebriated patrons following a ban on karaoke parlors. In either case, 2001 ended on a quieter, more somber note than it had begun.

The year began with the momentum for social justice and democratic progress in full swing with the passage of the Khmer Rouge tribunal draft law and the finalizing of steps to organize the scheduled 2002 commune elections.

But as both endeavors began to stumble into roadblocks, the year began to drag and hopes for quick and peaceful resolutions fell by the wayside, leaving the nation to wait.

And the fate of two groups in Cambodia seeking a safe refuge and a new home remained in question: Adopted orphans and persecuted Vietnamese Montagnards.

When the National Assembly passed a long-awaited Khmer Rouge tribunal draft law in January 2001, it was acknowledged by many that the next—and most crucial—step would be getting the laws enacted as quickly as possible.

“People cannot grow until this is resolved,” said Moeung Sonn, who lost all six of his children to the Khmer Rouge in 1976.

In June, Hun Sen stated that the special Khmer Rouge tribunal could be held as soon as December 2001.

No one has been tried yet.

In mid-Feb the final commune election laws were approved with an election date set for February 24, 2002. Prime Minister Hun Sen later changed the date to Feb 3 because all of the numbers in the date, month and year would then equal nine, a lucky number in a Cambodian card game.

The commune elections, representing the first local ballot since the government’s installment in 1979, would test the feasibility of peaceful democracy.

The lucky No 9 betrayed many, as claims of politically motivated killings, torchings and harassment abounded.

In early April, opposition party leader Sam Rainsy threatened to boycott the elections if the intimidation and murder of his supporters did not stop.

Some officials said they doubted the legitimacy of his complaints.
“Sam Rainsy always has an excuse,” CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith said at the time.

In May, CPP and Funcinpec leaders vowed to have violence-free elections. In July three politicians were killed in a three-week span.

Bustling Monivong Boulevard was thrown into chaos on the morning of July 4, 2001, when a powerful bomb blast ripped through an upper floor of the popular Hong Kong Hotel.

No one was killed in the explosion, but as police, firefighters and investigators picked through the rubble that was not the hotel’s upper floor, a second explosion rang out.

The large crowd of gawkers that had gathered outside the Hong Kong Hotel, to their shock, turned to witness the second explosion as it ripped out the upper floor of the nearby Favour Hotel. Onlookers fled as glass, brick, metal and smoke spewed across Monivong Boulevard. Three people were killed and 11 injured at the Favour Hotel.

Even as their bombs exploded, the attackers were in telephone contact with the managers of both hotels demanding ransoms.

Police investigations later rounded up several gang members, and revenge seemed to emerge as the main motive for the attacks.
Revenge over what remains a question, though one news agency noted that the attack took place on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the July 1997 factional fighting.

In mid-March, Cambodian officials lifted a ban on allowing Cambodian children to be adopted by families from around the world. Hun Sen urged Cambodian embassies abroad to monitor children taken overseas. For some families, getting the children overseas would prove to be the hard part.

In September, police raided an orphanage on suspicion that it was conducting unauthorized adoptions. As an investigation ensued, 12 children were held by a human rights organization as the intended adoptive families waited.

After it was determined that the families could legally adopt the children, they still had to wait for a US Embassy decision on whether to give the children US visas. It was December before the families were finally able to take their new children home.

Vietnamese Montagnards also waited the year out in Cambodia for a decision about whether they would be resettled.

In March one group of 24 Montagnards, Christians fleeing crackdowns on religion in Vietnam, were discovered entering Cambodia. The government, not desiring to become a haven for refugees, was long in deciding what to do with the Montagnards.
A US group pledged to resettle the Montagnards, and Hun Sen agreed to send them to a third country.

Ten Montagnards were resettled in the US in April. Local police in Mondolkiri raided the temporary home of the remaining Montagnards for a $15,000 bounty offered by the Vietnamese government. The Montagnards were forced to flee into the jungle, where one died while waiting for the government to decide whether they were in true need of asylum.

Late in the year, Hun Sen warned government officials not to disagree with government policies in public forums.

“If people are representing the government, they have to be on the government’s side,” said Kem Sokha, then the chairman of the Senate Human Rights Commission.

This materialized in mid-December when the CPP expelled three senators from the party for rejecting a government sponsored bill.
The three were forced to leave their posts and lost their salaries.

Next the streets of Cambodia were hushed. Karaoke parlors were banned by a decree from Hun Sen in November. Owners were issued a directive giving them only days to close their doors.

Hun Sen said he would no longer tolerate the social ills facing the country as a result of the violence and drug trafficking associated with karaoke parlors. This decision followed the arrest of Hun Sen’s then-teenage nephew Nhim Pov, accused of shooting a gun outside a crowded karaoke parlor.

Many were most surprised by the effective implementation of the decree.

Montagnard families who fled Vietnam’s Central Highlands gather near their tents May 13, 2001, at a site in Sen Monorom district, Mondolkiri province.

Dr Ross Rochhay of UN Development Program said that after a month, none of the more than 20 clubs in Siem Reap had reopened.

“At night it is very quiet,” Rochhay said.

Hun Sen said he was confident that it was possible to outlaw karaoke.

“We eliminated the Khmer Rouge organization,” Hun Sen said. “I do not believe that I cannot eliminate karaoke parlors.” (Additional reporting by Kevin Doyle)