Witness to Cambodia's birth pangs

By Raphael Minder

Among his childhood memories, Sam Rainsy recalls sitting with his father on the rooftop terrace of their beautiful house in Phnom Penh, watching pelicans land next to their water tank. "In Cambodia, which is full of superstitions, friends and neighbours kept telling us that these pelicans would end up by bringing us bad luck," he writes in his autobiography, Des Racines dans la Pierre (Roots in the Stone).

Sam Rainsy and his family have certainly endured plenty of misfortune. Their ups-and-downs mirror those of a country that ranks among Asia's fastest-growing economies, but that returned to multi-party democracy only 15 years ago, after decades of war and a genocide that wiped out about a quarter of the population.

Sam Rainsy has been an integral part of Cambodia's recovery, now as the leader of the country's main opposition party. But much of his life has been spent in France and other places of exile, first because of his father's political downfall, which ended with his death in mysterious circumstances, and then because of his own clashes with Hun Sen, the country's long-standing prime minister.

Still, that geographic distance in no way reduces the insight this book provides into events that have shaped Cambodia following a century of French colonialism, starting with the 1954 Geneva conference to reconfigure the former Indochina. Sam Rainsy's father was one of Cambodia's lead negotiators there, playing off tensions among more formidable government representatives such as Zhou Enlai and Vyacheslav Molotov to ensure that another foreign power would not fill the void left by the French.

The Geneva agreement guaranteed Cambodia's independence but was followed by the bleakest period in its history, climaxing in the Khmer Rouge's terrifying attempt to establish an agrarian utopia in the late 1970s. While that tragic episode was largely domestic, Sam Rainsy says Cambodia remains the Poland of Asia, sandwiched between two bigger neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam, and prone to being drawn into wider conflicts such as the Vietnam war.

This book is an often touching family history, but it also highlights the broader challenges faced by any war-ravaged country. After a successful banking career in Paris, Sam Rainsy returned to Cambodia in 1992 and within a year was put in charge of the finance ministry. Given the limited pool of talent, his wife Saumura was forced against her wishes to become deputy governor of the central bank.

For somebody with such a strong financial background, Sam Rainsy devotes surprisingly little of his book to Cambodia's economic resurgence, during which it has attracted billions of dollars of foreign investment and achieved average annual growth of 9 per cent over the past decade. Instead, he focuses excessively on the political jockeying in Phnom Penh, complicated by feuding within the royal family.

Sam Rainsy paints a grim picture of corruption in Cambodia, starting with his short-lived crusade, as finance minister, against tax evasion and smuggling. His strategy appears to have been remarkably naive at times. One ill-prepared boat attack against smugglers on the Mekong river, which he led, nearly cost him his life after the accompanying United Nations troops refused to get involved in the gunfight.

He has harsh words for foreign powers, including his otherwise beloved France, which he accuses of turning a blind eye to killings of political associates. Sam Rainsy has himself survived several assassination attempts, including a grenade attack that killed 19 -people.

"Paris preferred to forget the bloodstains on the suits of the ruling leaders in Phnom Penh in order to strike economic and technical co-operation agreements with them," he writes.

This book was published in the run-up to July's general election, which returned Hun Sen to power with a landslide victory. Despite Sam Rainsy's claim that Cambodians "want to get out of this old, neo-communist and mafiosi regime", many pundits believe that the 55-year-old Hun Sen has never had a stronger power base, almost justifying his boast that he would run the country until the age of 90. Rather than repressing opposition in the manner of the Burmese junta, Hun Sen has benefited from Sam Rainsy's challenge, which has been crucial to Cambodia's democratic credentials.

The book's title refers to the blend of architectural and natural beauty found around Angkor Wat, Cambodia's cultural treasure, where trees grow among the ruins. Although Sam Rainsy might not like the idea, it also seems an appropriate symbol for Hun Sen's deep-rooted control over his country.