A memorable letter from the Late H.E. Mr. Son Sann to Mr. Naranhkiri Tith, as president of World Cambodian Congress for Peace and Development (www.WCCPD.com) expressing his strong support for WCCPD and for Cambodia's democracy

Mr. Son Sann had selflessly sacrified his entire adult life for the defense and the interests of Cambodia and the Cambodian people. He had strong courage, commitment to peace and freedom. Above all he had strong leadership. He had many other great attributes of a hero as defined in a chart posted below. We may want to include other heroes from the past; however, at the moment, I don't have sufficient information of all those historical persons such as Pokambor, to be certain about their being a hero or not. In this page, I have also posted the biographies of four contemporary heroes of their respective people, such as;

- Augn San Suu Kyi (Myanmar, Nobel Laureate)

- Nelson Madela (Republic of South Africa, Noble Laureate)

- Mahatma Ghandi (India)

- Vaslav Havel (Czech Republic)

These four great leaders and heroes who had conviction in, and had used non-violence as a means to fight for the liberation of their people from foreign aggressions, are the kind of leaders that Cambodians should be looking up to as role model, and not such monsters as, Hun Sen, Pol Pot , Sihanouk, Sam Rainsy, Son Ngoc Thanh, Lon Nol, to name only the most obvious ones. May the spirit and soul of Mr. Son Sann rest in peace. I thank you, dear Mr. Son Sann, for being a hero for the Cambodian people.

Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D.

Washington DC, 2006

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The research is from Dictionary.com.

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November 23, 1997

To: Naranhkiri Tith, Ph. D.
Chairman, WCC
From: Mr. Son Sann
BLDP President - Paris France

Please convey to Mr. Naranhkiri Tith my friendliest and sincerest congratulations for his address of October 11, 1997 at the WCC 3rd Convention in Washington, DC. I read and reread it carefully and with great interests. WCC is neutral in relations to all political parties and regimes in Cambodia if it respects democracy and the law in Cambodia. Cambodian people are free to choose the political system they want for WCC. It is important to live with dignity, compassion and honor.

I like to warmly thank Mr. Naranhkiri Tith for all he has done for Cambodia in general, and for our party BLD in particular. His assistance is very precious for the survival of our country.

Son Sann
BLDP President - Paris France

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• For Sihanouk, Saving himself and The Monarchy Is More Important Than Saving Cambodia.

Recently, Sihanouk claimed that he cannot return to Cambodia because the Hun Sen government is endorsing the unequal Treaty Supplements that Vietnam had imposed on Cambodia.

Realistically, let us look at the facts concerning this very crucial event in contemporary history of Cambodia. The supplements are the additions made to the unequal treaties of 1983 and 1985.

In these two treaties imposed by Vietnam on Cambodia when Vietnam was occupying the country, Marie Alexandrine Martin, the famed French Ethnologist specialized on Cambodia, who wrote a book entitled "Cambodia: A Shattered Society (University California, Berkley, 1994)" revealed that in addition to these treaties which literally made Cambodia an integral part of the Greater Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh's had dreamt, known as "the Federation of Indochina," the then Communist Government of Cambodia, also had sent directives to Cambodian provincial officials to facilitate the settlement of new Vietnamese colonizers.

(See Directive dated October 9, 1983, from Chan Si  then Prime Minister of the Socialist People's Republic of Kampuchea during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, asking the Cambodian people to help Vietnamese immigrants settle in Cambodia; in 'Home' Page II). 

At the same time, Vietnam had declared that this process of integrating Cambodia and Laos into the greater Vietnam was "irreversible." 

Vietnam sacked Pen Sovann, the then first Cambodian prime minister under Vietnam - controlled Cambodia, Blaming him for not sufficiently obedient, and replaced him by Heng Samrin - a former Khmer Rouge senior officer.

Later on, in 1985, the Vietnamese replaced the incompetent Heng Samrin by Hun Sen, also a former Khmer senior military officer (Brigade commander), as Prime Minister under the Vietnamese occupied Cambodia.

So, it was clear that Hun Sen was put at the head of government of the Vietnamese--controlled Cambodia by the armed forces of Vietnam, because he was more pliable to Vietnam's control.

In 1987, Hun Sen and Sihanouk met for the first time in a small town near Paris. Not known to many people, Sihanouk had offered his pledge to help Hun Sen stay in power, if Hun Sen can guaranty the safety and the maintenance of the monarchy in Cambodia.

Since then, not many Cambodians knew about this well-hidden alliance between Hun Sen and Sihanouk. As usual, Sihanouk has been playing the hide-and- seek game of leading the fight to preserve the Cambodia's independence, even at times, publicly criticizing Hun Sen for being too authoritarian and unpatriotic.  His well-known mercurial and devious behavior, and his then alliance with Hun Sen has been fooling a lot of Cambodians, even the so-called educated ones, until today.

What most Cambodians don't know is the fact that since that first meeting in 1987 near Paris, there has been a close alliance between Hun Sen and Sihanouk. Unfortunately, not for the benefit of the Cambodian people, but for the benefit of the monarchy and the CPP.

These two recently written letters (from Sihanouk web site), which were exchanged between Sihanouk and Hun Sen, revealed the true and deadly nature of this tragic and destructive alliance between the two.

Please, read carefully these two crucial and convincing pieces of evidence posted below, and draw your own conclusion.

Washington, DC. January 16, 2006

Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D.

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Comments:

The following world leaders are those who have the characterics of a hero as described above, are the most admired leaders in the world, today. Cambodians should seriously insist that their leaders must meet the critieria of a hero as defined above. Only with this kind of leadership can Cambodia expect to move out of the current deadly path that it has been following, since the Angkor time.

Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D

Washington DC. January 17, 2007

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• Aung San Suu Kyi

The Nobel Peace Prize 1991

Biography*

1942: September 6. Marriage of Aung San, commander of the Burma Independence Army, and Ma Khin Kyi (becoming Daw Khin Kyi), senior nurse of Rangoon General Hospital, where he had recovered from the rigours of the march into Burma.

1945: June 19. Aung San Suu Kyi born in Rangoon, third child in family. "Aung San" for father, "Kyi" for mother, "Suu" for grandmother, also day of week of birth.

Favourite brother is to drown tragically at an early age. The older brother, will settle in San Diego, California, becoming United States citizen.

1947: July 19. General Aung San assassinated. Suu Kyi is two years old. Daw Khin Kyi becomes a prominent public figure, heading social planning and social policy bodies.

1948: January 4. The Independent Union of Burma is established.

1960: Daw Khin Kyi appointed Burma's ambassador to India. Suu Kyi accompanies mother to New Delhi.

1960-64: Suu Kyi at high school and Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi.

1964-67: Oxford University, B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics at St. Hugh's College (elected Honorary Fellow, 1990).

British "parents" are Lord Gore-Booth, former British ambassador to Burma and High Commissioner in India, and his wife, at whose home Suu Kyi meets Michael Aris, student of Tibetan civilisation.

1969-71: She goes to New York for graduate study, staying with family friend Ma Than E, staff member at the United Nations, where U. Thant of Burma is Secretary-General. Postponing studies, Suu Kyi joins U.N. secretariat as Assistant Secretary, Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. Evenings and weekends volunteers at hospital, helping indigent patients in programs of reading and companionship.

1972: January 1. Marries Michael Aris, joins him in Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where he tutors royal family and heads Translation Department. She becomes Research Officer in the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

1973: They return to England for birth of Alexander in London.

1974: Michael assumes appointment in Tibetan and Himalayan studies at Oxford University.

1977: Birth of second son, Kim at Oxford.

While raising her children, Suu Kyi begins writing, researches for biography of father, and assists Michael in Himalayan studies.

1984: Publishes Aung San in Leaders of Asia series of University of Queensland Press. (See Freedom from Fear, pp. 3-38.)

1985: For juvenile readers publishes Let's Visit Burma (see Freedom from Fear, pp. 39-81), also books on Nepal and Bhutan in same series for Burke Publishing Company, London.

1985-86: Visiting Scholar, Center of Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, researching father's time in Japan. Kim with her, Alexander with Michael, who has fellowship at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies at Simla in northern India.

1986: On annual visit to grandmother in Rangoon, Alexander and Kim take part in traditional Buddhist ceremony of initiation into monkhood.

1987: With fellowship at Indian Institute Suu Kyi, with Kim, joins Michael and Alexander in Simla. Travels to London when mother is there for cataract surgery.

Publishes "Socio-Political Currents in Burmese Literature, 1910-1940" in journal of Tokyo University. (See Freedom from Fear, pp. 140-164.) September. Family returns to Oxford. Suu Kyi enrolls at London School of Oriental and African Studies to work on advanced degree.

1988: March 31. Informed by telephone of mother's severe stroke, she takes plane next day to Rangoon to help care for Daw Khin Kyi at hospital, then moves her to family home on University Avenue next to Inya Lake in Rangoon.

July 23. Resignation of General Ne Win, since 1962 military dictator of Burma. Popular demonstrations of protest continuing.

August 8. Mass uprising throughout country. Violent suppression by military kills thousands.

August 15. Suu Kyi, in first political action, sends open letter to government, asking for formation of independent consultative committee to prepare multi-party elections.

August 26. In first public speech, she addresses several hundred thousand people outside Shwedagon Pagoda, calling for democratic government. Michael and her two sons are there.

September 18. Military establishes State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Political gatherings of more than four persons banned. Arrests and sentencing without trial reaffirmed. Parliamentary elections to be held, but in expectation that multiplicity of parties will prevent clear result.

September 24. National League for Democracy (NLD) formed, with Suu Kyi general-secretary. Policy of non-violence and civil disobedience. October-December. Defying ban, Suu Kyi makes speech-making tour throughout country to large audiences.

December 27. Daw Khin Kyi dies at age of seventy-six.

1989: January 2. Funeral of Daw Khin Kyi. Huge funeral procession. Suu Kyi vows that as her father and mother had served the people of Burma, so too would she, even unto death.

January-July. Suu Kyi continues campaign despite harassment, arrests and killings by soldiers.

February 17. Suu Kyi prohibited from standing for election.

April 5. Incident in Irawaddy Delta when Suu Kyi courageously walks toward rifles soldiers are aiming at her.

July 20. Suu Kyi placed under house arrest, without charge or trial. Sons already with her. Michael flies to Rangoon, finds her on third day of hunger strike, asking to be sent to prison to join students arrested at her home. Ends strike when good treatment of students is promised.

1990: May 27. Despite detention of Suu Kyi, NLD wins election with 82% of parliamentary seats. SLORC refuses to recognise results.

October 12. Suu Kyi granted 1990 Rafto Human Rights Prize.

1991: July 10. European Parliament awards Suu Kyi Sakharov human rights prize.

October 14. Norwegian Nobel Committee announces Suu Kyi is winner of 1991 Peace Prize.

1991: December. Freedom from Fear published by Penguin in New York, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Also in Norwegian, French, Spanish translations.

December 10. Alexander and Kim accept prize for mother in Oslo ceremony. Suu Kyi remains in detention, having rejected offer to free her if she will leave Burma and withdraw from politics. Worldwide appeal growing for her release.

1992: Suu Kyi announces that she will use $1.3 million prize money to establish health and education trust for Burmese people.

1993: Group of Nobel Peace Laureates, denied entry to Burma, visit Burmese refugees on Thailand border, call for Suu Kyi's release, Their appeal later repeated at UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva.

1994: February. First non-family visitors to Suu Kyi: UN representative, U.S. congressman, New York Times reporter.

September-October. SLORC leaders meet with Suu Kyi, who still asks for a public dialogue.

1995: July 10. SLORC releases Suu Kyi from house arrest after six years of detention.

In the last four years her movements have still been restricted. While she has had some opportunities to telephone her family in England, she is regularly denounced in the government-controlled media, and there is concern for her personal safety. Efforts to revive any NLD party activities have been balked, and its members have been jailed and physically attacked. In the first months after detention was ended, she was able to speak to large gatherings of supporters outside her home, but this was stopped. Yet her popularity in the country has not diminished.

Internationally her voice has been heard not infrequently. Reporters with cameras and videotape have been able to interview her in person, and telephone interviews with the media outside Burma have also been published. Using video cassettes she has sent out statements, including the keynote address to the NGO Forum at the U.N. International Women's Conference in Beijing in August 1995.

There have been a number of visitors from abroad, including a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, whom she told that Norway will be the first country she will visit when free to travel. SLORC has changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council, but its repressive policies and violation of human rights continue unabated.

Suu Kyi discourages tourists from visiting Burma and businessmen from investing in the country until it is free. She finds hearing for such pleas among western nations, and the United States has applied economic sanctions against Burma, but Burma's neighbours follow their policy of not intervening in the internal affairs of other sovereign states, and Burma has been admitted into the Association of South Eastern Asian Nations.

On March 27, 1999, Michael Aris died of prostate cancer in London. He had petitioned the Burmese authorities to allow him to visit Suu Kyi one last time, but they had rejected his request. He had not seen her since a Christmas visit in 1995. The government always urged her to join her family abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return. This separation she regarded as one of the sacrifices she had had to make in order to work for a free Burma. 

Selected Bibliography

By Aung San Suu Kyi

Freedom from Fear and Other Writings. Edited with introduction by Michael Aris. 2nd ed., revised. New York and London: Penguin, 1995. (Includes essays by friends and scholars.)

Voice of Hope: Conversations. London: Penguin, 1997 and New York City: Seven Stories Press, 1997 (Conversations beginning in November 1995 with Alan Clements, the founder of the Burma Project in California who helped with the script for the film based on her life, “Beyond Rangoon”.)

Other Sources

“Aung San Suu Kyi”, in Current Biography, February 1992.

Clements, Alan and Leslie Kean. Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity. New York: Aperture, 1994. (Many colour photographs with text, Includes essay by Aung San Suu Kyi.)

Clements, Alan. Burma: The Next Killing Fields. Tucson, Arizona; Odonian Press, 1992. (With a foreword by the Dalai Lama.)

Lintner, Bertil. Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948. Boulder. Colorado: Westview, 1994. (By a well-informed Swedish journalist.)

Lintner, Bertil. Outrage: Burma’s Struggle for Democracy. 2nd ed., Edinburgh: Kiscadale, 1995.

Mirante, Edith T. Burmese Looking Glass. A Human Rights Adventure and a Jungle Revolution. New York: Grove, 1993.

Smith, Martin J. Burma: Intrangency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London: Zed Books, 1991. (A detailed and well-organised account by a journalist of the violent conflict between the military government and the many minorities.)

Victor, Barbara. The Lady: Aung San Suu Kyi: Nobel Laureate and Burma’s Prisoner. Boston and London: Faber & Faber, 1998. (A sympathetic account by a wellpublished author and journalist, whose research in Burma included interviews with government leaders.)  

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* Since no biography was printed in Les Prix Nobel 1991, this chronology has been assembled by the editor.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1991-1995, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1999

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown _

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• BIOGRAPHY OF MAHATMA GANDHI:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. He became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. GandhiJI helped free the Indian people from British rule through nonviolent resistance, and is honored by Indians as the father of the Indian Nation.

The Indian people called Gandhiji  'Mahatma', meaning Great Soul. At the age of 13 Gandhi married Kasturba, a girl the same age. Their parents arranged the marriage. The Gandhis had four children. Gandhi studied law in London and returned to India in 1891 to practice. In 1893 he took on a one-year contract to do legal work in South Africa.

At the time the British controlled South Africa. When he attempted to claim his rights as a British subject he was abused, and soon saw that all Indians suffered similar treatment. Gandhi stayed in South Africa for 21 years working to secure rights for Indian people.

He developed a method of action based upon the principles of courage, nonviolence and truth called Satyagraha. He believed that the way people behave is more important than what they achieve. Satyagraha promoted nonviolence and civil disobedience as the most appropriate methods for obtaining political and social goals. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India. Within 15 years he became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement.

Using the principles of Satyagraha he led the campaign for Indian independence from Britain. Gandhi was arrested many times by the British for his activities in South Africa and India. He believed it was honorable to go to jail for a just cause. Altogether he spent seven years in prison for his political activities.

More than once Gandhi used fasting to impress upon others the need to be nonviolent. India was granted independence in 1947, and partitioned into India and Pakistan. Rioting between Hindus and Muslims followed. Gandhi had been an advocate for a united India where Hindus and Muslims lived together in peace.

On January 13, 1948, at the age of 78, he began a fast with the purpose of stopping the bloodshed. After 5 days the opposing leaders pledged to stop the fighting and Gandhi broke his fast. Twelve days later a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse who opposed his program of tolerance for all creeds and religion assassinated him

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