Rarely do occurrences genuinely merit that exhausted literary phrase, Orwellian. But if a document apparently leaked from the Cambodian government’s Office of the Council of Ministers (OCM) is to be believed, then the story of the Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) “Cyber War Room” may well have a legitimate claim to the term.
A photo of the document (pictured above), sent to me and published online by “I Love Cambodia Hot News” (a wildly popular pro-opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party Facebook page) on August 4th is titled “Cyber War Room”. According to the anonymous source who claimed to have leaked the photo, and who spoke via a third party, the list is a group of agents headed up by Hun Manet (son of Hun Sen, the incumbent Prime Minister) who have been enlisted by the government to set up ghost Facebook accounts, spread misinformation and faked documents to undermine the viability of the social media network as a tool for dissent.
As recently as the last national elections in 2008, public criticism of the de facto autocratic government was all but non-existent. Now social media is transforming the political culture: in the 2013 national elections on the 28th July, the opposing Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) struck an unexpected and historic blow to the CPP at the ballot box, largely carried by a connected and informed urban youth movement that is increasingly outspoken. Both sides are now claiming victory amidst opposition allegations of widespread electoral fraud and the country is in deadlock.
Given the state’s virtual monopoly on media outlets, a burgeoning number of Cambodia’s disproportionately young population (after as much as a quarter of the population died during the Khmer Rouge era) consume their news via social media. Government figures show that between 2010 and 2012 internet usage leapt from one to nearly 20%. But Facebook, with nearly a million users, isn’t the sole reserve of dissenters and the site has fast become a fierce psychological battleground for both sides of the political divide. Everyday the social network is ablaze with claims and counter-claims, politically charged spats amongst the league of super users (some with as many as 200,000 followers), and virulently circulating rumours.
The validity of the document and the existence of a CPP “Cyber War” strategy has, unsurprisingly, been difficult to verify. I emailed the CPP to check whether the “leaked” document was indeed from the OCM. No response. None of the people on the list I contacted via Facebook have yet responded. All of the people on the list I was able to call were busy at the time. Maybe they were all at the same Thursday afternoon barbecue. I didn’t hear back from any of them.
The public Facebook accounts of several of the people listed are innocuously typical. Others, including Hun Manet and Chea Chheng (highlighted in the red box, not by me) are openly CPP activists. There’s not in itself anything wrong with this: in Cambodia, you are after all free to support Hun Sen and his 27 years of incumbency should you so choose.
But I did track down one of Cambodia’s social media celebrities, Phe Sovannarith, who has over 160,000 followers. His name doesn’t appear on the “Cyber War Room” list but his online activity over the last month has entailed some truly bizarre twists.
You might remember the name from a post on this blog about mounting racial tension in Cambodia from 1st August in which I wrote:
“Prominent student leader and CNRP supporter (although not officially affiliated), Phe Sovanarrith, (who has 130,000 facebook followers to Sam Rainsy’s 186,000) has posted warnings in Khmer for Vietnamese to “return to Vietnam quickly”. Every day users post more sinister incitements to racially-motivated violence.”
At the time of writing, there was no reason not to believe that Mr. Sovannarith was a CNRP supporter. Here’s a picture from 21st July which reads: “I Love Number 7”, the number of the CNRP on the ballot sheet.
Here’s a picture of him from the 25th July at a CNRP rally with a caption that reads: “We have to stand up against Number 4”, the number of the ruling party.
Another post on the same day was even more emphatic. Mr. Sovannarith stated: “you cannot look down on my CNRP’s love”, that “before I decided to join the CNRP I told my mother to buy a CNRP coffin and if I die I will be a ghost of CNRP” and that he would be “honoured” to be the first “young supporter to die for Sam Rainsy [the leader of the opposition]”.
No reason not to suggest that here was a keen CNRP supporter. Maybe too keen.
Then on the 12th August, I received an email from the Deputy Director-General of the CNRP’s Public Affairs, Kem Monovithya, with a correction to my blog post: that “Phe Sovannarith is not a CNRP supporter” and that he was in fact “a CPP activist posing as a CNRP supporter to create chaos. He’s been exposed and has himself admitted this.” I called Ms. Monovithya to find out more and she considered it fact that ghost accounts were being used to flood Facebook with propaganda and misinformation.
Duly returning to Mr. Sovannrith’s page it was evident that he had indeed switched allegiances. His most recent post at the time (12th August) was an image of the head of Sam Rainsy on the body of a Chihuahua with the caption: “USA Dog”. Was this the handiwork of an outed undercover CPP activist or just an internet troll extraordinaire?
I met up with Mr. Sovannarith last week to find out what was going on.
Mr. Sovannrith, 27, is a lecturer at various educational institutions in Phnom Penh where he lives. He founded the Cambodian ASEAN student friend page six months ago, which now has 112,000 members. He says his personal page is for “sharing my knowledge of politics” and to “create a brainstorm” within the Cambodian youth.
His detractors, of which there are many, say that under a burden of online allegations, Mr. Sovannarith was forced to come clean about his associations with the CPP.
Allegations made by people such as “Admin Sun” who appears to have some sort of personal grievance against Mr. Sovannarith (stating that he wants to make him “hurt and bloody”) and claims to be a former student of his. In Admin Sun’s often vitriolic post on the 28th July, he alleges that “Phe is a former soldier at Army Force Station under Hun Maneth [the Prime Minister’s son]” that he has been given a substantial budget of $100,000 for equipment, office rental and a team of online agents to “serve the CPP”.
The part about Mr. Sovannarith being a former soldier is true. Here’s a picture of him from 2008 when he served for a year in the military.
Mr. Sovannarith, who spoke via a translator, flatly denies that he has ever been paid by the CPP. But he openly admits that he was appointed a CPP leader two years ago and regularly attends their youth meetings despite his insistence that “in my heart I support the CNRP.”
Was it publically known that he was a CPP leader before he was “exposed”? “Nobody knew” he tells me. Mr. Sovannarith says the “exposure” was actually staged by friends of his to “grab attention” from both sides of the political spectrum.
Grabbing attention is a priority for Mr. Sovannrith who claims his decision to orchestrate an exposé and publically defect to the government was part of a grand plan to cast himself in a fictitious high-stakes drama:
“I’m like an actor playing in a movie. When I was acting with the CNRP, I had to act as a person opposing the government. Now I’m playing myself in another position so I have to do something to oppose the CNRP. But actually now I’m neutral. I’m playing myself in a middle position, so if I see any flaws with either of the parties I will study it and share it with the people” he said.
I ask Mr. Sovannarith if it was apparent to everyone that he was just playing a role. By way of response he refers me to a Cambodian proverb he posted on his page:
“When a country faces a state of emergency the strong will hide, the smart will conceal their knowledge and the fools act like they know something, the people who know something will act foolish. What do those individuals live for?”
I’m not sure what to make of that, but he says that masquerading as an electoral observer gained him access to real observers during the recent national elections on the 28th July: “when I was playing as an observer, lots of real observers were coming and talking to me” he says.
I ask Mr. Sovannarith if he shares intelligence with the CPP and he explains that the opposite is the case: he attends the CPP meetings to get the inside scoop and then shares the information with the “I Love Cambodia Hot News” team.
But I spoke to a member of I Love Cambodia Hot News immediately after our interview (who has asked to remain anonymous over fears for his safety) and he denied that there is any correspondence between the two of them.
Mysteriouser and mysteriouser as the Cheshire Cat might say.
Initially, Mr. Sovannarith said that his personal page and the ASEAN friends network are his own pet projects and that it’s “only me” who operates them. But after more probing he reveals that he has a team of ten student volunteers who post comments on his behalf.
Are Mr. Sovannrith and his team “creating chaos” as Ms. Monovithya claims? “Yes. I accept that” Mr. Sovannarith says matter-of-factly. What’s the objective? “I want to influence both the CPP and the CNRP supporters” he says before adding in English: “Because I want to control Facebook”.
George Steptoe 
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