Khmer Rouge

• President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni – Africa’s fourth-longest-serving head of state in 2023 – has cemented his place in history.
• When his men marched into Kampala in 1986, Museveni became the first leader of a popular insurrection to oust a sitting African government.
• Keeping the politically instructive memory of the dark past vividly alive has been his enduring achievement.

The politics of salvation

• His father was a member of the clan of noblemen; his mother was a born-again Christian, a convert of the East African Revival.
• Revivalists were renowned for their loud professions of rectitude and for their wilful disobedience towards traditional authorities.
• It was in politics, not religion, that the young Museveni sought to author other people’s salvation.

The ‘black Che Guevara’

• By the time the Amin regime collapsed in April 1979, Museveni had 9,000 volunteers under his command.
• In December 1980 Ugandans went to the polls to vote in a new government.
• There followed a long guerrilla war, fought between Museveni’s band of militants and the brutal, incompetent military of Obote’s government.
• In January 1986 National Resistance Army militiamen marched into Kampala and formed a new government, with Museveni as president.
• Commentators sometimes referred to Museveni as the “black Che Guevara”.

Commemorating the Bush War

• The awful violence of the Bush War, as it is called, made Museveni’s new government seem essential.
• Today the memory of the Bush War remains a key part of the liturgy of public life.
• Museveni periodically tours Luweero, where the Bush War was largely fought.
• In September this year he celebrated his 79th birthday at Katonga, scene of a key battle of the Bush War.

• On June 30, 2023, the Facebook page of Hun Sen – who has ruled the country as leader of the Cambodian People’s Party for almost four decades – appeared to have been deleted.
• It wasn’t immediately clear whether Hun Sen had removed the page or Meta had taken it down.
• Cambodia has had Hun Sen as prime minister for 38 years.

Many parties, no opposition

• The problem for democracy watchers is that the list of parties allowed to run does not include the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party.
• Further, the Candle Light Party – the last vestige of real, credible opposition in Cambodia – was not permitted to register for the forthcoming election for bureaucratic reasons.
• The missing paperwork that prevented registration is believed by CLP supporters to have been taken during a police raid on opposition headquarters years ago.

Khmer Rouge commander to autocratic leader

• Hun Sen rose to power after being installed as deputy prime minister and foreign minister by the Vietnamese forces that liberated Cambodia in 1979 from the Khmer Rouge – a murderous regime in which Hun Sen served as a commander – and then occupied the country for a decade.
• With his country still under Vietnamese occupation, Hun Sen became prime minister in 1985 after his predecessor, Chan Sy, died in office.
• Since then, he has used the power of incumbency – along with a large dose of brute force – to remain in office.
• After falling out with his co-premier, Hun Sen orchestrated a coup in 1997 and replaced Norodom Ranariddh.

From autocracy to nepotocracy?

• In advance of the July 23 vote, the government has cracked down on independent media.
• One of the last truly independent outlets, the Voice of Democracy, was shuttered by Hun Sen. Its crime?
• Yet, Voice of Democracy was nonetheless blamed and told to apologize, which it did, but then was still shuttered.
• Cambodia’s anti-democratic rule and human rights abuses have been condemned by the European Union, the White House and the United Nations.

• Open-source satellite imagery indicates there are minefields that stretch for hundreds of kilometres in the east and the south of the country.
• One single fortified mine line runs 90km from the Russian border to north of the town of Lysychansk in the east.
• A definitive and coordinated 'Marshall plan for mines' would be a clear call to action for the international community."
• Brady Afrik, an open-source satellite analyst, has identified hundreds of km of Russian defensive fortifications in southern and eastern Ukraine.

• As an act of cultural renewal, Bangsokol speaks to the role of the arts as a means for healing and reconciliation and seeks to inspire a new generation of artistic expression.
• Recorded at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY, the album features the Metropolis Ensemble, Cambodian Ensemble, and the Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir, with Metropolis Ensemble Artistic Director Andrew Cyr conducting.
• So, working with Him Sophy and Phloeun Prim of Cambodian Living Arts, the commissioning organization, to release an album of such importance feels particularly relevant in today's world where conflict is rampant."
• Join the CEREMONY - beginningMay 20, 2022, @ 11:30 AM ET.