Khmer Intelligence News - 27 June 2007

27 June 2007

What Hun Sen does not want to hear from Vietnam (2)

On 26 April 2007, pretexting sudden illness, Prime Minister Hun Sen unexpectedly and abruptly cancelled a meeting in Phnom Penh with Vietnamese National Assembly president Nguyen Phu Trong who was on an official visit in Cambodia. Actually, Hun Sen did not want to hear what the top Vietnamese leader wanted to tell him. The message from Vietnam was subsequently communicated to several Cambodian parliamentarians from all political parties. The message includes three points:

1. No national leader must stay in power all his life. In Vietnam, since 1975, there has been several and successive changes in the country's leadership. Change is necessary to ensure that the national leadership remains healthy and effective.
2. The Government must really respect the National Assembly that represents the sovereign people. Even though there is a one-party system in Vietnam, the Government attaches an extremely high importance to the views, recommendations and criticisms expressed by the legitimate representatives of the people ( i.e. not like in Cambodia where the National Assembly is merely a rubber-stamp parliament).
3. In any country, the Government must really and effectively fight against corruption in order to promote the rule of law and to ensure a sustainable development. In Vietnam, countless government officials accused of corruption have been severely punished: they have been dismissed, put in jail or even executed ( i.e. not like in Cambodia where there is a de facto impunity for all sorts of criminals).

Ranariddh threatens CPP (2)

In an interview broadcast on Radio Free Asia on 25 June 2007, Prince Norodom Ranariddh implicitly threatened Prime Minister Hun Sen that he would call his royalist supporters to support parliamentary opposition leader Sam Rainsy if the Cambodian government were continuously unwilling to ask King Norodom Sihamoni to pardon him so that he would be allowed to safely come back to Cambodia to resume his political activities. Prince Ranariddh was sentenced in March to 18 months in prison for breach of trust (corruption within his own party). See report on the interview here.

CPP threatens Kem Sokha (2)

Through appropriate channels, the ruling CPP has made it clear to Human Rights Party (HRP) president Kem Sokha that they would allow the Court to prosecute him if he were not cooperative enough with the Government. A group of 16 independent lawyers and journalists who were Kem Sokha's colleagues at the dying Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), have formed a Truth Committee to denounce Kem Sokha's corruption when he was CCHR president and have filed a lawsuit against him for breach of trust (corruption within his own organization) . Kem Sokha has been so far immune from prosecution because the CPP is using him to split the democratic forces (see KI, 8 April 2007: "Hun Sen protects Kem Sokha") but he could be sentenced any time to 18 months in prison on breach of trust charges, just like prince Norodom Ranariddh, if he is not docile enough. See statement by the Truth Committee here.

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Khmer Intelligence, 8 April 2007

Hun Sen protects Kem Sokha (2)

While ordering the Court to be tough against Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was sentenced in March 2007 to 18 months in prison and to pay 150,000 dollars to the Funcinpec party on breach of trust charges, Prime Minister Hun Sen has instructed the same Court to temporarily shelve Kem Sokha's case. The president of the US-funded Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), who is to leave his position by the end of this month to form a political party in May 2007, should normally face prosecution following embezzlement and corruption lawsuits filed against him by 16 former CCHR employees who accuse him of diverting CCHR funds and stealing their salaries (see news below: "Insidious corruption in Government and NGOs"). Kem Sokha has never accepted to meet his former colleagues or to answer any of their questions. By protecting Kem Sokha, Hun Sen wants to encourage the former Son Sann Party Secretary-General and former Funcinpec Senator to create a new political party so as to split Cambodia's democratic forces. By continuously threatening to use the Court to crackdown on his actual and potential opponents, Hun Sen will be able to control Kem Sokha, whom he actually holds hostage. Current Funcinpec leaders including Nhiek Bun Chhay and You Hockry, who are facing numerous potential criminal lawsuits, are also being held hostage by Hun Sen.

Insidious corruption in Government and NGOs (2)

It is easy to understand why the Cambodian government wants to get rid of the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a US-based legal group that has publicized cases of financial malpractice at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, by expelling them from Cambodia. The OSJI has exposed insidious forms of corruption in Cambodia, in both government and non-government organizations, that no international audit ordered by donor countries has ever been able to expose. In a country plagued with rampant corruption like Cambodia, where everything is paid in cash, either officially or under the table, it is common to see suppliers issuing inflated bills and giving kickbacks to individuals who, on behalf of the Government or NGOs, have purchased goods and services from them. It is also common to see employees giving back a portion of their salaries every month to individuals who have recruited them on behalf of the Government or NGOs and asked them to be "grateful".

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