Ruling Cambodian People’s Party president Chea Sim,
considered the second-most-powerful figure in government for much of the period
since the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, died yesterday at his home aged 82.
The octogenarian, who was also the president of the Senate,
had long dealt with ill health and made repeated trips oversees for medical
attention since suffering a stroke in October 2000.
In a statement yesterday, the Senate announced that Sim, who
suffered from diabetes, died at 3:45pm, adding that the National Assembly would
shut down today for a period of mourning.
CPP spokesman Suos Yara said Prime Minister Hun Sen was by
Sim’s side within 30 minutes of his death.
“The whole nation and the party pay tribute to the loss of
our statesman, who liberated Cambodia from the genocidal regime,” Yara said,
praising Sim as a “humble” and “kind” man of the people.
“He is the leader of our party and the chair of the Senate,
so we will be organising a state ceremony.… The solidarity and love among our
statesmen and our members is very strong,” he added, referring to Hun Sen’s
visit to the family.
Late yesterday evening, a directive signed by the prime
minister declared Friday, June 19, an official day of mourning, with government
offices to be closed and flags flown at one-third mast.
Cambodia National Rescue Party spokesman Yim Sovann said the
opposition had also expressed their condolences to Sim’s family.
“He has worked very hard for Cambodia,” Sovann said.
Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chea Sim share a laugh at the
Cambodian People’s Party headquarters in 1999.
Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chea Sim share a laugh at the
Cambodian People’s Party headquarters in 1999. AFP
Staring down from billboards around the country, an anointed
member of the ruling CPP’s triumvirate of “Samdechs” along with Prime Minister
Hun Sen and National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Sim long served as a key
foundation of the government’s political power.
President of the Cambodian People’s Party since 1991, he was
also the leader of the largest CPP faction outside of Hun Sen’s own core power
base of supporters, and in the 1980s was often referred to as Cambodia’s
“strongman”.
Born on November 15, 1932, in Romeas Hek district of Svay
Rieng province, Sim graduated from a Buddhist school and in 1951 joined the
Issarak movement, which was fighting for independence from French rule,
according to his biography.
In 1970 he joined the Khmer Rouge and, following the
ultra-Maoist movement’s 1975 toppling of the Lon Nol regime, rose to become
secretary of Ponhea Krek district in the Eastern Zone region, in what is now
Tbong Khmum province.
Amid Pol Pot’s internal purges, Sim fled to Vietnam and
along with Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and Pen Sovann, became one of the leaders of
the Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, which
joined Vietnamese troops in overthrowing the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He was
appointed the party’s vice president at the age of 46.
At the time, historian Evan Gottesman wrote, Sim, with his
stocky build and cropped hair, looked to be one of the few Cambodians not
starving under the Khmer Rouge.
In the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) regime installed
afterward by the Vietnamese, Sim quickly rose to prominence, appointed as
minister of interior and chair of the party’s internal security committee.
He quickly promoted friends and family into the fledging
bureaucracy, helped the Vietnamese co-opt former Khmer Rouge cadres into the
new government and, behind the scenes, built a personal patronage network in
the provinces and the security apparatus which would form the backbone of his
political capital in the years to come.
In 1981, according Gottesman, Sim’s influence became
concerning to the Vietnamese, and he was moved out of the Ministry of Interior
to the largely ceremonial role of president of the National Assembly.
But Sim remained at the heart of the then-PRK’s internal
security apparatus and continued to command strong allegiances with high-level
members of the party, including the man seen as his factional successor – the
current interior minister and Sim’s brother-in-law, Sar Kheng.
In a September 1990 profile titled “Cambodia’s populist
hero”, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Despite his relatively low profile outside
the country, Cambodian officials and many diplomats in Phnom Penh describe Chea
Sim as the real power center in Cambodia.”
Throughout the present regime’s more than 30 years of rule,
Sim and Hun Sen, who was appointed prime minister in 1985, maintained a
dependent but fractious relationship.
Following a failed coup attempt in 1994 by disgruntled CPP
officials, the prime minister began a series of moves to shore up his own
network and undercut his rival.
Hun Sen installed Hok Lundy, an ally, as the next National
Police chief, and began turning his personal bodyguard unit into a de facto
army. In 1997, despite opposition from Sim and other prominent CPP members, he
launched the July coup against Prince Ranariddh’s Funcinpec.
However, many see the real turning point in the battle
between the two CPP titans as coming in 2004, when Sim was escorted out of the
country by Lundy’s police.
Ostensibly taken to Bangkok for “medical reasons”, Sim had
refused to sign off, as acting head of state, on constitutional changes that
would allow CPP and Funcinpec to form a coalition government, reportedly
unhappy that his allies were being cut out of government.
Though his base was to be further eroded – including the
2011 arrest of a number of Chea Sim-linked officials, among which was his chief
bodyguard – Sebastian Strangio, author of Hun Sen’s Cambodia and a former Post
reporter, said Sim was always able to put conflicts with Hun Sen aside when
came it to protecting the CPP.
King Norodom Sihanouk waves at the inauguration ceremony of the new Senate
body at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh in 1999
King Norodom Sihanouk waves at the inauguration ceremony of
the new Senate body at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh in 1999, watched by the
new Senate president Chea Sim (left). AFP
“Without this united front against the party’s external
enemies, the CPP would never have been able to remain in power for so many
years,” Strangio said.
Strangio said Sim’s death was unlikely to significantly
alter the wider balance of power within the party, as his role in government
had become “mostly symbolic” as he had succumbed to illness.
“The CPP’s internal workings are so opaque that it is hard
to say what the impact of his death will be,” Strangio said, adding that Sim’s
faction would be further eroded by the death of the “pillar of the old guard”.
In April, Hun Sen announced his intention to take Sim’s
position as head of the party when he died.
However, Suos Yara yesterday said the prime minister will
continue in his role as “acting president” until the CPP votes on a new leader.
Likewise, Sim’s position as Senate president will be held in
caretaker fashion by Senate First Deputy President Say Chhum until the upper
house elects a replacement, Yara said.
Whether or not Sim’s position as head of the ruling party
went to the prime minster, Strangio said it would only have a minimal impact on
the balance of power in the CPP.
“In Cambodian politics, formal titles are less important
than the ability to mobilise support along patronage lines,” he said.
“Becoming party chief would augment Hun Sen’s stature, but
in practical terms would merely formalise a status quo that has existed for
years.”
Political commentator Ok Serei Sopheak said that although
the succession plans had likely been long-cemented, it would be important to
watch impending reshuffles of the party in the coming months.
“The prime minister gets the number one position, but who
will be officially announced number two and number three and so on, and so on,”
Sopheak said.
“When that’s announced, then you can analyse the dynamic of
the news today.”
Sopheak, who met Sim on a number of occasions while working
in the Interior Ministry in the ’90s, said he remembered Sim as having a “sharp
analytical appreciation of the country”.
“He was a great nationalist but without extremism, and he
always talked about the situation with the agriculture of the villagers, of the
grassroots community. I guess it is where he came from, where he belongs,”
Sopheak recalled.
Sim’s wife, Nhem Soeun, died in 2009. Sim is survived by his
six children
Source: http://www.phnompenhpost.com