Cambodian prime minister seems bent on stamping out all opposition to his rule [-Isn't this how dictators behave?]

General Strongman Hun Xen

Human Rights Watch says Hun Sen uses violence, the courts and money to control the nation's political system

July 22, 2009
By Jonathan Manthorpe
Vancouver Sun (BC, Canada)

For 16 years, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has worked to dismantle the democratic institutions established by the United Nations in 1993 and to restore the untrammeled power he enjoyed as Vietnam's proxy leader in the 1980s.

Now, it seems, success is within his grasp.

But his dogged determination to root out even the most insignificant and unthreatening pockets of opposition has led to the publication of three critical reports in the past few days.

At least nine journalists, opposition members of parliament, lawyers and government critics have had politically motivated charges of defamation or the dissemination of disinformation lodged against them in the past few months.

This could be said to be a less drastic fate than has befallen Hun Sen's political opponents in the past. Many have been murdered by unidentified gunmen.

A statement a few days ago from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia warned the use of the courts to silence opposition or critical voices "is a serious threat to democratic development which may undermine the efforts of the last 16 years to rebuild a tolerant and pluralistic environment in Cambodia."

In another report, Brad Adams of New York-based Human Rights Watch said: "Through violence, threats and money politics, Hun Sen already controls almost every aspect of Cambodia's politics. Yet his efforts to silence dissent seem endless. Why does he seem to wake up every day looking for enemies to persecute? Will this ever end?"

And the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in its report, "The actions of the government in the past few months indicate that it is directly and systematically trying to dissolve the main opposition party [the Sam Rainsy Party] by filing unfounded criminal lawsuits against its leaders or forcing its members and supporters to join [Hun Sen's] Cambodian People's Party."

It is a situation full of bleak ironies. Not least of these is that Hun Sen is squeezing the last bit of life out of Cambodia's democratic institutions as, after years of tortuous negotiations, the trials are proceeding of some of the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, which murdered about 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

It was the Vietnamese-led ouster of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 that brought Hun Sen to power.

When he failed to win United Nations-imposed elections in 1993, Hun Sen threatened civil war until he was brought into a coalition with the royalist party government of Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Hun Sen dissolved that coalition in 1997 by launching a bloody coup, and since then his CPP has won overwhelming majorities in 2003 and 2008 elections.

But these victories do not appear to be complete enough for Hun Sen, whose party now has 90 seats in the 123-seat parliament.

Having disposed of the royalists, Hun Sen has mounted a sustained attack on the main opposition party, named for its leader, Sam Rainsy, which has 26 seats.

Rainsy himself fled into exile in 2005 after accusing Hun Sen of being behind the murder of four Sam Rainsy Party members the previous year. He has returned to Cambodia, but was accused of defamation earlier this year.

Meanwhile, two of Rainsy's members of the National Assembly have had their parliamentary immunity lifted so they can face charges of criminal defamation.

On July 7, the lawyer representing the two Sam Rainsy Party members resigned and defected to the ruling CPP after being sued for defamation by Hun Sen and threatened with disbarment. The parliamentarians have so far been unable to find a new lawyer brave enough to represent them.

In late June, the owner of an opposition newspaper Machas Srok was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of disinformation after publishing articles about government corruption.

The owner of another newspaper, Moneaksekar Khmer, on July 10 closed the paper rather than face criminal prosecution for criticizing government officials.

In an interview with Radio Australia earlier this month, Sam Rainsy Party member of parliament Son Chhay said: "I think we will quiet down for a while. We are not going to raise the issue of corruption. We are not going to speak about land-grabbing. We are not going to talk about the corrupt court system."

jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com