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The idea that the CPP is cohesive is a common one, yet if we look below the surface it seems that it is largely an illusion. Although it has presented a united front to outsiders, there have always been power struggles and turf wars within the party. Now, with Chea Sim out of the picture, there is less moderation of these conflicts, and a greater chance that they could emerge into open division if mass mobilisation occurred.
Although some limited sanctions have been put in place, the likelihood of outright bans on Cambodia-manufactured garments from the U.S. and E.U. seems low, and while some of the major unions have been co-opted by the CPP, there are still labour and opposition networks in place that could be used to mobilise dissent – although whether these will survive the crackdown is an open question.
I would also point out that the CPP’s frequent and heavy-handed propaganda against ‘colour revolution’ attests to the fact that the party’s leadership is genuinely worried about mass mobilisation as a possibility in the near future.
Thank you for your comment.

The Hebrew Bible was canonized circa 500 BCE, when Jews returned from Babylonian Exile to the land. Warfare against Amalekites (etc.) applies to the earlier times, when Hebrews migrated with a sense of the Promised Land to what was Canaan before. After many conquests by the empires of the day, culminating in the Roman Empire, the Jews rebelled against Roman efforts under Caesar Augustus to place emperor statues in the Temple in Jerusalem, rebelled, and were submitted to genocide. The Rabbinical tradition took over, and violence was largely proscribed, plausibly because Jews in exile were always in a weak minority. The teachings of Rabbi Hillel are an example. Starting roughly with the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, Rabbinical legal tradition parallels Christian tradition in its preference for peace. Oddly enough, Christianity as it was adopted by the Roman Empire saw much more violence, both aggressive and defensive, than did exilic Judaism. (E.g, the wars of the Reformation and Counter-reformation). In any case, the warlike actions of the much earlier historical canon were simply lost and ignored. Again, this may reflect a practical doctrine in view of the defenselessness of the exilic communities. Christians and others rarely understand that Biblical violence describes events before 500 BCE. All this would be consistent with the “historical emergence” view of theology, such as held by the historian Paul Johnson and others. I view all that as a skeptic, but I hope increasing peacefulness and rationality over time is true. There is another debate among scholars whether it is or not.

I would like to commend this very nice article. Excellent discussion of a difficult topic!
I take the silence of much of the scholarly community, including for example in the total lack of comments on this article so far, as a very ominous and troubling sign.
Whatever the intent, such silence will only embolden the Myanmar genocidaires — for lack of a better word in English, I am borrowing this word from the Rwandan genocide where it referred to the planners and perpetrators, here I use it to refer to the generals, soldiers, hate-mongering monks, and the politicians who together have promoted, enacted, and covered up the genocide: even going so far as to try to prevent transparent discussion in the world’s top forum for these issues, the United Nations.
I would agree that there can be no ambivalence when we scholars are faced with massive war crimes and genocide, as now in Myanmar.
I also agree that what we anthropologists and other scholars really can contribute more than anyone else, is analysis. As individuals we can of course also opinionate, advocate, donate to the refugees, etc., but as scholars, our main thing and main duty really would be analysis, and by extension, education.
So, the genocide becomes a challenge to scholarship: We must ask, and try to answer, questions like:
–What motivates the genocide propagandists? the military perpetrators? the complicit politicians? How do they go about their work? How do they sleep at night?
–Why the core role of Myanmar’s Buddhists in this genocide, and why the near-absence of disagreement among Buddhists, –excepting the brave minority of Buddhists who refuse to accept the hate and violence? (for example see https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/fighting-the-cancer-of-extreme-nationalism-in-myanmar). -This is not new, but this massive new tragedy surely makes it a core question for all buddhologists, and some new research is already appearing building to previous insights about Buddhism turned into a vehicle of hate, violence, and, now, of ugly, trumpist-styled nationalism).
–Also, what is Facebook’s and other “social” media corporations’ role, guilt, and duty in this situation, now that Facebook is so deeply complicit in the genocide? There is a new flurry of research and thinking on this problem globally (on the grave danger that social media is beginning to pose for political democracy), that Myanmar/Asia scholars can contribute to mightily.
–What makes ordinary good people go along with the propaganda and cheer the military’s and the vigilante’s murderous campaign? Here we can obviously learn much from comparing the embrace of Hitler’s agenda by people in Nazi Germany, and other similar examples. (It will be similar for Myanmar also in that the genocide is now a long-term issue, a burden and a question, for generations to come, in Myanmar and for all the rest of us).
–Also, concretely on the ground (not even talking about the mass camps in Bangladesh here): The Myanmar government has declared it is already surveying the cleansed areas inside Myanmar, so as to redistribute the land to approved settlers (https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Rohingya-crisis/Tensions-over-Rohingya-return-highlight-donor-dilemmas). How is this consumption of the intended rewards of genocide and ethnic cleansing coming along now?
As always, the genocidaires will of course try to prevent all such research. I think we must try to do it anyway. The alternative is to let them get away with it.
Of course it could be that the world as a whole is entering a phase of narrow-nationalist selfishness and hatred, and that we’ll see ever more of these murderous land-grabs occurring in the context of shrinking land, resources, and minds. But we should still try, I think, for a better future.
A final footnote.
We anthropologists are sometimes constrained (at least in the US) by the ethics regime under which we are expected to disclose our agenda to our objects of study and obtain their consent for studying them. This ethics arrangement is of course warranted in many cases, as when we study the oppressed or marginalised people we anthropologists often end up studying, but I also strongly believe we should not let this stand in the way of studying the bad guys, when need be, such as, interviewing genocide perpetrators, or the like. We can either frame our research within the consent apparatus with an approved, partially concealed agenda (this should often be possible to have approved by the lawyers in charge), or, we can be like Günther Wallraff, the famous German journalist, who did invaluable, in-depth research on bad guys in many places without disclosing his mission to them or asking for their consent.