How is That for Compassion?

This post is especially dedicated to my many detractors in a certain segment of the overseas Khmer community.

This is a story about staunch SRP-followers who, as it happens, are also part of Sam Rainsy’s in-law family. It appears that Sam Rainsy’s wife and Mu Sochua are cousins, of whatever degree. According to another relative of the family, they also have another cousin living in the U. S. The latter and her husband were firm supporters of Sam Rainsy and his party. This sort of would go without saying, wouldn’t it? Eventually, the husband, however, found that Sam Rainsy does not serve the purpose of unseating the Hun Sen government very well and stopped giving donations. He thought it was money wasted. Why? Well, we don’t know but listening to SR’s unconstructive pronouncements, we can only surmise.

The wife having her own business continued supporting her cousin’s party. Nothing wrong with that really. Now apparently the relationship between the wife and her husband became a little strained. It is not known whether the disagreement about their brother-in-law and his politics is the reason or because the husband wanted to help his poor relative and actually gave her money to buy a Cambodian flat (town house). We are talking about roughly $45,000. He also wanted to buy his relative’s daughter a motorbike and new clothes, and possibly set her up in her own apartment. It smacks a bit of ‘srey tha tha’, right? Now the wife became suspicious as the writing on the wall cried out, ‘Infidelity’. After all, it is not completely unheard of that some older men are smitten with younger women, whether she is a grandniece or not. On one of her visits to Cambodia the wife confronted the relative and asked that she sell the house and return the money, which the relative at first refused. It was a gift from the husband, her uncle (blood-relative), what is she – the wife - thinking? How dare she ask the money back, the relative thought. They give plenty of money to the party, but when it comes to helping poor relatives with five children back in Cambodia, all of a sudden their generosity abruptly ends, she said. In the end she did sell her house, though. Normal people are just scared of people with money or with good connections. You never know what they might come up with next. So she paid back the money. She made a small profit on the sale and borrowed money from someone else to get a new place for herself and her children.

Nice folks – and pretty normal too, right? Yeah, but for those people who stand for helping the poor, it would appear a wee bit odd, now wouldn’t it?

Disclaimer: As recounted by my source.