Archive for the ‘Cuba’ Category
Monarchy in Cambodia
November 28, 2009
King
Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy, i.e. the King reigns but does not rule, in similar fashion to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The King is officially the Head of State and is the symbol of unity and “eternity” of the nation, as defined by Cambodia’s constitution.
From September 24, 1993 through October 7, 2004, Norodom Sihanouk reigned as King, after having previously served in a number of offices (including King) since 1941. Under the Constitution, the King has no political power, but as Norodom Sihanouk was revered in the country, his word often carried much influence in the government. For example, in February 2004, he issued a proclamation stating that since Cambodia is a “liberal democracy,” the Kingdom should allow gay marriage. While such views aren’t prevalent in Cambodia, his word was respected by his subjects. The King, often irritated over the conflicts in his government, several times threatened to abdicate unless the political factions in the government got along. This put pressure on the government to solve their differences. This influence of the King was often used to help mediate differences in government.
After the abdication of King Norodom Sihanouk in 2004, he was succeeded by his son Norodom Sihamoni. While the retired King is highly revered in his country for dedicating his lifetime to Cambodia, the current King has spent most of his life abroad in France. Thus, it remains to be seen whether the new King’s views will be as highly respected as his father’s.
Although in the Khmer language there are many words meaning “king”, the word officially used in Khmer (as found in the 1993 Cambodian Constitution) is preahmâhaksat (Khmer regular script: ), which literally means: preah- (“sacred”, cognate of the Indian word Brahmin) -mâha- (from Sanskrit, meaning “great”, cognate with “maha-” in maharaja) -ksat (“warrior, ruler”, cognate of the Indian word Kshatriya).
On the occasion of HM King Norodom Sihanouk’s retirement in September 2004, the Cambodian National Assembly coined a new word for the retired king: preahmâhaviraksat (Khmer regular script: ), where vira comes from Sanskrit vīra, meaning “brave or eminent man, hero, chief”, cognate of Latin vir, viris, English virile. Preahmâhaviraksat is translated in English as “King-Father” (French: Roi-Père), although the word “father” does not appear in the Khmer noun.
As preahmâhaviraksat, Norodom Sihanouk retains many of the prerogatives he formerly held as preahmâhaksat and is a highly respected and listened-to figure. Thus, in effect, Cambodia can be described as a country with two Kings: the one who is the Head of State, the preahmâhaksat Norodom Sihamoni, and the one who is not the Head of State, the preahmâhaviraksat Norodom Sihanouk.
Succession to the Throne
Unlike most monarchies, Cambodia’s monarchy isn’t necessarily hereditary and the King is not allowed to select his own heir. Instead, a new King is chosen by a Royal Council of the Throne, consisting of the president of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, the Chiefs of the orders of Mohanikay and Thammayut, and the First and Second Vice-President of the Assembly. The Royal Council meets within a week of the King’s death or abdication and selects a new King from a pool of candidates with royal blood.
It has been suggested that Cambodia’s ability to peacefully appoint a new King shows that Cambodia’s government has stabilized incredibly from the situation the country was in during the 1970s.
Leadership of Cambodia
November 27, 2009
Prime Minister
The Prime Minister of Cambodia is a representative from the ruling party of the National Assembly. He or she is appointed by the King on the recommendation of the President and Vice Presidents of the National Assembly. In order for a person to become Prime Minister, he or she must first be given a vote of confidence by the National Assembly.
The Prime Minister is officially the Head of Government in Cambodia. Upon entry into office, he or she appoints a Council of Ministers who are responsible to the Prime Minister. Officially, the Prime Minister’s duties include chairing meetings of the Council of Ministers (Cambodia’s version of a Cabinet) and appointing and leading a government. The Prime Minister and his government make up Cambodia’s executive branch of government.
The current Cambodian Prime Minister is Cambodian’s People Party (CPP) member Hun Sen. He has held this position since the criticized 1998 election, one year after the CPP staged a bloody coup in Phnom Penh[1][2] to overthrow elected Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, president of the FUNCINPEC party.
Legislative branch
The legislative branch of the Cambodian government is made up of a bicameral parliament.
The National Assembly of Cambodia (Radhsaphea ney Preah Reacheanachak Kampuchea) has 123 members, elected for a five-year term by proportional representation.
The Senate (Sénat) has 61 members. Two of these members are appointed by the King, two are elected by the lower house of the government, and the remaining fifty-seven are elected popularly by “functional constituencies.” Members in this house serve a five-year term.
The official duty of the Parliament is to legislate and make laws. Bills passed by the Parliament are given to the King who gives the proposed bills Royal Assent. The King does not have veto power over bills passed by the National Assembly (the lower house) and, thus, cannot withhold Royal Assent. The National Assembly also has the power to dismiss the Prime Minister and his government by a two-thirds vote of no confidence.
Senate
The upper house of the Cambodian legislature is called the Senate. It consists of sixty-one members. Two of these members are appointed by the King, two are elected by the lower house of the government, and the remaining fifty-seven are elected popularly by “functional constituencies.” Members in this house serve six year terms.
Elections were last held for the Senate in 1999. New elections were supposed to have occurred in 2004, but these elections were initially postponed. On January 22, 2006, 11,352 possible voters went to the poll and chose their candidates. This election was criticized by local monitoring non-governmental organizations as being undemocratic.
As of 2006[update], the Cambodian People’s Party holds forty-three seats in the Senate, constituting a significant majority. The two other major parties holding seats in the Senate are the Funcinpec party (holding twelve seats) and the Sam Rainsy Party (holding two seats).
National Assembly
The lower house of the legislature is called the National Assembly. It is made up of 123 members, elected by popular vote to serve a five-year term. Elections were last held for the National Assembly in July 2008.
In order to vote in legislative elections, one must be at least eighteen years of age. However, in order to be elected to the Legislature, one must be at least twenty-five years of age.
The National Assembly is led by a President and two Vice Presidents who are selected by Assembly members prior to each session.
As of 2009[update], the Cambodian People’s Party holds a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, controlling 90 out of the 123 seats. The Sam Rainsy Party holds 26 seats and other parties hold the other 7 seats.
Information from www.wikipedia.org
Christianity in Cambodia
November 26, 2009
The gospel came late to Cambodia. The first Protestant missionary arrived in 1923, translated the New Testament in 1933 and published the whole Bible in 1953. Its message was not welcome and few believed or obeyed it.
In 1965 the government’s anti-American crusade forced the missionaries to withdraw. After 40 years of work they left the Khmer Evangelical Church with less than one thousand members.
In 1970, with the rise of the pro-American regime, the return of the missionaries, and the beginning of the war with the Khmer Rouge, there was freedom and growth for the Church. Many turned to God. There were large evangelistic crusades and Christians laboured with a sense of urgency. When war broke out there were three congregations in Phnom Penh. By 1975 this had increased to 30.
In response to urgent requests, OMF sent five members to Phnom Penh in 1974 to work alongside the Church. But a year later all missionaries were forced to make a ‘reluctant exodus’, leaving a Church of around 10,000 members. The Khmer Rouge assumed control of the country in 1975. The persecution was savage; 90 per cent of Christians and all Christian leaders were martyred or fled the country.
From 1975, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled to Thailand, where they were housed in refugee camps. OMF workers previously expelled from the country went to the camps with the message of hope, and over the following years several thousand Cambodians were baptised.
Despite Pol Pot’s attempt to crush the Church and the pressures on it during the next decades, the small remnant has grown from a few hundred Christians to approximately 40,000 today. There are now around 750 churches.
By 1991 OMF and other missions once again had members resident in Cambodia, learning Khmer. In 1994 the government gave permission for OMF to work in Cambodia as a church-planting mission, but also required OMF personnel to fulfil this in humanitarian terms. Therefore at least one half of the OMF team membership are involved with development work as their principal ministry. The OMF team has grown rapidly in the last few years, though the opportunities grow even faster. It is a relatively young team and welcomes short-term workers.
In the aftermath of the war and oppression, many are open to the gospel. But the infant churches need much support and prayer. All the leaders are young and most lack adequate biblical training. There are therefore many extremes of teaching due to a dearth of biblical understanding. There is a lack of unity, with many divisions between congregations. Christian Khmer literature is in desperately short supply. OMFers work with the Church in all these areas, seeking to build mature, self-supporting and self-propagating congregations.
Information from www.omf.org
Religion in Cambodia
November 25, 2009
Religion in Cambodia is predominantly Buddhism with 95% of the population being Theravada Buddhist. Most of the remaining population adheres to Islam, Christianity, Animism and Hinduism.
Buddhism
Buddhism has existed in Cambodia since at least the 5th century CE, with some sources placing its origin as early as the 3rd century BCE. Theravada Buddhism has been the Cambodian state religion since the 13th century CE (excepting the Khmer Rouge period), and is currently estimated to be the faith of 95% of the population.
The history of Buddhism in Cambodia spans nearly two thousand years, across a number of successive kingdoms and empires. Buddhism entered Cambodia through two different streams. The earliest forms of Buddhism, along with Hindu influences, entered the Funan kingdom with Hindu merchants. In later history, a second stream of Buddhism entered Khmer culture during the Angkor empire when Cambodia absorbed the various Buddhist traditions of the Mon kingdoms of Dvaravati and Haripunchai.
For the first thousand years of Khmer history, Cambodia was ruled by a series of Hindu kings with an occasional Buddhist king, such as Jayavarman of Funan, and Suryvarman I. A variety of Buddhist traditions co-existed peacefully throughout Cambodian lands, under the tolerant auspices of Hindu kings and the neighboring Mon-Theravada kingdoms.
Islam
Islam is the religion of a majority of the Cham (also called Khmer Islam) and Malay minorities in Cambodia. According to Po Dharma, there were 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims in Cambodia as late as 1975. Persecution under the Khmer Rouge eroded their numbers, however, and by the late 1980s they probably had not regained their former strength. All of the Cham Muslims are Sunnis of the Shafi’i school. Po Dharma divides the Muslim Cham in Cambodia into a traditionalist branch and an orthodox branch.
Hinduism
Cambodia was first influenced by Hinduism during the beginning of the Funan kingdom. Hinduism was one of the Khmer Empire‘s official religions. Cambodia is the home to one of the only two temples dedicated to Brahma in the world. Angkor Wat of Cambodia is the largest Hindu temple of the world.
Tribal religions
Highland tribal groups, most with their own local religious systems, probably number fewer than 100,000 persons. The Khmer Loeu have been loosely described as animists, but most tribal groups have their own pantheon of local spirits. In general they see their world filled with various invisible spirits (often called yang), some benevolent, others malevolent. They associate spirits with rice, soil, water, fire, stones, paths, and so forth. Sorcerers or specialists in each village contact these spirits and prescribe ways to appease them. In times of crisis or change, animal sacrifices may be made to placate the anger of the spirits. Illness is often believed to be caused by evil spirits or sorcerers. Some tribes have special medicine men or shamans who treat the sick. In addition to belief in spirits, villagers believe in taboos on many objects or practices. Among the Khmer Loeu, the Rhade and Jarai groups have a well developed hierarchy of spirits with a supreme ruler at its head.
Although most Cambodians adhere to Buddhism or the other main religious groups like Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, there is a strong belief in guardian spirits of the ancestors, Neak Tha, Yeay Mao and many others.
Information from www.wikipedia.org
History of Cambodia
November 16, 2009
Little is known of the early history of Cambodia, although there is evidence of habitation in parts of the country as far back as 4000BC. It is also known that Chinese and Indian traders exchanged goods with people living on the coasts of present-day Cambodia and Vietnam in the early AD centuries. According to Chinese chroniclers, a kingdom known as ‘Funan’ flourished between AD300–600. A dynasty founded by the prince Jayavarman – possibly descended from the rulers of Funan – ruled from settlements in the eastern part of the country between around AD790 and the 11th century. Cambodian power spread westwards during this period into parts of Thailand.
The succeeding dynasty, which ruled throughout the 12th and early-13th centuries, was based at the famous temple complex of Angkor Wat. Under King Suryavarman, the Cambodians extended their influence still further into southern Vietnam and northern Thailand. However, from 1220 onwards, Angkor came under concerted military pressure from the Chinese to the north and the newly emergent kingdoms of northern Thailand. By the end of the 15th century, Angkor had been abandoned and fell into ruin. It has remained unoccupied ever since, with the exception of a brief period during the early-16th century. From then until the establishment of the French protectorate, Cambodia was in thrall to its more powerful Thai and Vietnamese neighbors.
French involvement in Cambodia came about through its colonial engagement in Vietnam, and was largely intended to forestall possible British or Thai incursions along the Mekong river. The unstable ruling family in Cambodia at the time, headed by King Norodom, needed little persuasion to accept French protection and control over its foreign and security policies. A brief attempt to reassert Cambodia’s independence in the 1880s was put down by the French, who then absorbed Cambodia into what became French Indochina. It became an Associated State of the French Union in 1949, achieving full independence in 1953.
In 1955, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit, to allow himself to enter politics. Using the title Prince Sihanouk, he founded a mass movement, the Popular Socialist Community, which held power between 1955–1966. Prince Sihanouk became Head of State in 1960, following the death of his father. The overspill of the Vietnam war, in particular the massive secret bombing campaign conducted by the Americans against Vietnamese guerrilla bases inside Cambodia, served to destabilize the Sihanouk government. In March 1970, two years after the bombing began, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by a right-wing coup, which proclaimed a Khmer Republic under the rule of General Lon Nol. Khmer Rouge Communist guerrillas, allied with their Vietnamese counterparts, stepped up their military campaign against the government. In 1975, they took control.
The real power behind the Khmer Rouge was the new Prime Minister Pol Pot, who had manufactured a unique ideology based on elements of Maoist thought and Medieval quasi-mysticism, rooted in the history of the Angkor state. The practical effect was the establishment of ‘Year Zero’ (in 1975), under which Cambodia was to be converted into a pure Communist state centered on basic agricultural production. Currency was abolished, intellectuals purged, churches and temples destroyed and thousands of urban dwellers driven into the countryside for ‘re-education’ and primitive agricultural labor. The outcome was a regime of horrific brutality, which was responsible for another of the 20th century’s genocides – it is estimated that one third of the population died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule.
At the end of 1978, the Vietnamese army – provoked by repeated Khmer attacks on their territory and sickened by the regime’s excesses – invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmers. A new constitution was declared in 1981. By 1982, Phnom Penh, a ghost city under the Khmer Rouge, was re-populated by the return of up to 600,000 inhabitants from the countryside. The Vietnamese-controlled government experienced continuing armed opposition from an unlikely coalition of supporters of Prince Sihanouk, the KPNLF (Khmer Peoples’ National Liberation Front) and the Khmer Rouge, of which the latter were backed by China and were by far the most powerful. The coalition as a whole was supported by the West and collectively recognized as the legitimate government of Cambodia by the United Nations.
Cambodia drifted in a state of penury and semi-chaos throughout the 1980s, until a UN-led effort began to stabilize the country. In 1991, a political settlement was reached, which included all parties except the now much-diminished Khmer Rouge. Under the terms of the 1991 settlement, the UN provided a 16,000-strong peacekeeping force and extensive administrative support (under the rubric of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, UNTAC). The operation was widely perceived as a success and sufficient political stability was created to allow a general election in 1993. This produced a narrow victory for FUNCINPEC, the party led by Prince Sihanouk, who had returned to the country from exile to assume the presidency. FUNCINPEC entered into a government of national unity with its main opponent, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the political descendant of the government that took over following the Vietnamese intervention in 1978, led by Hun Sen.
The two parties squabbled continuously over policy, development, aid, commercial contracts and dealing with the Khmer Rouge. Hun Sen and the CPP then moved to exclude FUNCINPEC from government. This brought down the wrath of the international community – international aid was suspended and Cambodia’s application to join ASEAN was postponed indefinitely. In 1998, the CPP gained a small overall majority at National Assembly elections but, mindful of international reaction, now chose to form a coalition government with FUNCINPEC. ASEAN duly relented and Cambodia is now a full member of the organization. More importantly, Cambodia finally had a government which enjoyed undisputed international recognition. The two parties also agreed an international tribunal format, similar to that used for former Yugoslavia, under which Khmer Rouge leaders will be tried for genocide. The KPK remained in government following the 2003 elections, suggesting that Cambodia was, to some extent, still dominated by an authoritarian regime hiding behind the veneer of democratic practice. Further symptoms of turbulence include the recent abdication of King Norodom Sihanouk in late 2004, who abdicated due to old age and frail health, but also, he claimed, because of the worry of more violence in a land still traumatized by Pol Pot’s brutal rule in the 1970s, without a clear succession. This event diagnosed the nation’s widespread and continuing fears and frictions. Last-minute legislation had to be administered since the constitution did not permit abdication and, eventually, the nine-member throne council appointed his son, Norodom Sihamoni, as the new king. King Norodom Sihamoni has vowed to remain politically neutral and open to ideas from all Cambodians. Only time will tell if the succession marks a new, more optimistic, era for Cambodia.
Information from www.iexplore.com
Introduction to Cambodia
November 15, 2009
With a total land area of 181,035 square kilometres, the Kingdom of Cambodia is the smallest of the former Indochinese countries. It is bounded to the west and north west by Thailand, to the north by Laos, to the east and south east by Việt Nam and to the south by the Gulf of Thailand.
