When the commune elections are held next year, and the national elections in 2018, there will be an important participant whose name does not appear on the ballots. In fact, that participant is already hard at work campaigning for the Cambodian National Rescue Party. I refer to Radio Free Asia. RFA pretends to be an impartial, private broadcaster; it has even managed to get the word “private” included in its description in Wikipedia. But RFA is funded and run by various parts of the US government. It was established in the 1950s by a CIA front called “Committee for Free Asia”. RFA claims that CIA control ended in 1971. Anyone who wants to believe that is free to do so (RFA didn’t exactly broadcast its CIA connections before 1971). But even if we take their word for it, it is still the case that RFA is funded and therefore controlled by the same people – the US government – who fund and run the CIA; exactly which channels the funds flow through doesn’t matter very m...