For now, there are no answers to the questions that trouble the students of literature teacher and popular singer Touch Srey Nich.
The questions start with the shooting of the 24-year-old on a crowded street Tuesday morning. They end with uncertainty about the country’s future.
“This is not a personal conflict. They had a political reason for gunning my teacher down,” said 18-year-old Chhuon Chanvadeth, one of Touch Srey Nich’s 17 students at the Royal University of Fine Arts.
“And I’m not afraid to put my name in the paper to express my opinion about my teacher’s shooting,” he said.
After leaving her students Tuesday morning, Touch Srey Nich emerged from a flower shop on Monireth Boulevard at about 11 am and was shot three times at close range.
Her mother was also shot and later died at Calmette Hospital. Witnesses said she tried to shield her daughter from the gunman.
Touch Srey Nich, who was shot in the face in neck, is being treated at a Bangkok hospital.
“I want to know why they shot her. Killing is not the solution,” said Sok Chanthona, 18, another student.
Touch Srey Nich’s brother, who witnessed the attack, and her father always drove the singer to the university, staff members said. Her father was often seen seated in the shade of a tree outside the university, waiting for her to finish teaching classes, said Van Putserey, chief of the Royal University’s music faculty.
“I couldn’t believe it when my friends called, saying that Touch Srey Nich was shot, because she had just left school with her brother,” Van Putserey said. “I was shocked to hear it.” He added that she is a good teacher.
Touch Srey Nich has taught at the university for a year, but she is more widely known for her fair skin and soft songs.
She is also publicly pro-Funcinpec. She performed several of the royalist party’s campaign songs and featured in Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s film “Raj Borei.”
She is known to sing about political and social issues, such as the plight of the Khmer Krom, that have rankled some government officials.
Authorities have made no arrests, and government officials have denied any involvement in the double shooting.
But students who know her and others in the capital said Wednesday that the attack on Touch Srey Nich, on the heels of Saturday’s execution-style shooting of a pro-Funcinpec radio reporter, was blatantly political.
“The situation in Cambodia is not good,” said a 24-year-old Norton University student, who requested anonymity for his safety. “This attack in the period of political deadlock, it means that both popular people and ordinary people have become targets for politicians.”
The student added, “Many people are scared to leave their homes…. I have no hope that the offender will be arrested.”
Touch Srey Nich has performed on television, her pictures splashed across popular glossy magazines. She prefers to perform in modest traditional Khmer dress, which has won her many fans who reject the flashier, sexier styles of other singers.
That she became a target weighs heavily on her fans.
“We are very disappointed, because the shooting…was not explained clearly by authorities,” said Yov Minhly, a vendor in Phsar Kandal. “We don’t know what the problem is behind the shooting.”
Many are drawing a parallel to the 1999 slaying of beloved classical Khmer dancer and movie starlet Piseth Pilika. That killing was also rumored to be linked to politics, and an investigation failed to yield any arrests.
“None of the offenders related to the [shooting] of Touch Srey Nich will be arrested, because someone gunned down Piseth Pilika in 1999 and the government could not make any arrest,” said Van Putserey. “Stop killing Khmers. We have the same Khmer blood.”
Others interviewed were skeptical that the case would be solved. Ing Rinsopheak, a staff member at Kantha Bopha I Hospital, said he thought the attack was linked to the current political standoff between the CPP and the Alliance of Democrats, which is composed of the Sam Rainsy Party and Funcinpec.
Asked about his hopes for the investigation, he referred to a commentary posted on King Norodom Sihanouk’s Web site that the vast majority of high-profile shootings and killings in the country’s recent history have gone unsolved.
“It is just as King Norodom Sihanouk wrote,” Ing Rinsopheak said.
