Congratulations to you, Mr. Obama – Cambodians deserve more from you

Recently, Cambodia has sent its congratulations to United States President Barack Obama for his election victory. President Obama was re-elected for a second four year term. 

Local paper front-pages featured Obama's re-election Nov 8, 2012.

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen joined the ranks of world leaders who sent congratulatory messages to the re-elected head of state.

As a Cambodian citizen, I would also like to congratulate Mr. Obama for his reelection. However, my message would be a bit different. Here it goes:

When I was at young age, my grandfather frequently told me about his big house along the Mekong River in Kampong Cham province being destroyed by the US’s B-52 bombs – though no-one was injured or killed.

My grandparents’ family was just one of the many thousands of Cambodian victims of the US bombing campaign against Cambodia before it fell into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

To my knowledge, Cambodia at that time was neither a declared enemy of the US nor it did harm to the American people like the Taliban or Al Qaida in Afghanistan. Yet, lives and properties of innocent Cambodians were lost to the bombing. This tragedy should not necessarily have happened to the Cambodian people.

The US has never officially admitted the mistake it did to the Cambodian people during that time. And, I think, it is now time for the US government to do something humanitarian to reduce or eliminate the negative memory of the bombing.

One of the examples can be the construction of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, village ponds, schools etc. by the US government with the signboard reading “Aid from the American People” in any locations it had bombed. These infrastructures will help Cambodians of the next generations remember the generosity of the Americans, thus gradually forgetting the suffering their older generations suffered from the American bombing.