Cambodia: government crackdown on dissenters

Cambodian opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua at a rally on August 4 2009 – the day she was convicted of defamation. Photograph: Mak Remissa/EPA

Tuesday August 4th 2009
The Guardian (UK)

In his Cambodia diary, Ian MacKinnon reports on how critics complain that the government has launched a wave of lawsuits aimed at preventing criticism from opposition ministers and the media, something that has had a 'chilling effect' on the Cambodian people

The animated green men that populate the Cambodian capital’s pedestrian crossings are a recent innovation. When signals switch from red to green, a clock counts down. With plenty of time Green Man initially lopes in slow motion. But as seconds tick away his speed increases, turning finally to a sprint. Well may Phnom Penh’s pedestrians run. For Green Man is an apt metaphor for a country that started out slowly but is now developing at breakneck speed.

The VIP drivers of black Lexus SUVs with tinted windows and no number plates brook no opposition on the boulevards. At once conspicuous and anonymous, they mark the pace of Cambodia’s change.

Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of the government, the architect of the progress evident in the skyscrapers, such as Gold Tower 42, beginning to spring up in this low-rise city of ochre colonial villas. Critics in the main opposition Sam Rainsy party, the media and civil society have in recent weeks been attacked with a barrage of lawsuits filed by the prime minister, Hun Sen, and his supporters.

Two opposition MPs were stripped of their parliamentary immunity and are being sued for defamation. One case relates to a speech Hun Sen made in which he referred to an unnamed woman as “strong legs”, a serious slur in Khmer. The MP Mu Sochua believed it referred to her and filed a defamation suit against the prime minister, who countersued. Her claim was dismissed, but Hun Sen’s was allowed.

On Tuesday she was convicted of defamation in a closed-door hearing. She was fined $2,300 and ordered to pay Hun Sen $2,000 in damages. No decision was made on whether she will be able to remain in parliament.

The travails of Mu Sochua’s lawyer also illustrate the problem. Kong Sam Onn is a young attorney prepared to accept the most challenging cases. Targeted by the prime minister, he became the subject of an ethics complaint before the bar association, whose former chief is Hun Sen’s lawyer. Kong Sam Onn had no choice but to pull out of the Mu Sochua case. He wrote a letter of apology to Hun Sen and asked to join his Cambodian People’s party (CPP).

Abject apologies seem to be the minimum price the prime minister requires. Dam Rith, editor-in-chief of the opposition Moneaksekar Khmer daily, was charged with defamation by the prime minister. To head off the legal threat, Dam Rith closed his decade-old newspaper and grovelled to Hun Sen. “I ask permission to demonstrate deep respect and bow down and apologise,” he wrote. “I have in the past committed inappropriate acts again and again.”

Hang Chakra, who publishes the Khmer Machas Srok, is serving a 12-month jail term for accusing government officials of corruption. Moeung Sonn, head of the Khmer Cultural Civilisation Foundation, got a two-year jail term in his absence for “disinformation” after suggesting that new lights at Angor Wat could damage the ancient structures.

At least nine lawsuits have been filed recently. Critics say the targets have been chosen to send a clear message to the government’s opponents, threatening to destroy the progress of the last 16 years of peace. “It has had a chilling effect,” said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights. “Cambodians are intimidated, definitely. It’s part of a long history, including the Khmer Rouge genocide, that plays a major part in the fact that Cambodian people will not speak out and will turn a blind eye.”

Why now? Opponents have felt Hun Sen’s wrath before. After winning 90 out of 123 parliamentary seats in last year’s election, however, the CPP appears secure. But critics say that since the last crackdown five years ago land prices have rocketed, with the government trying to find ways to sell off state land so that the politically well-connected elite can make vast profits in a country that is ranked 166 out of 180 in Transparency International’s corruption index.

The land sales and the building boom have caused conflict. Squatters in shanties around Phnom Penh suddenly found themselves sitting on valuable real estate, but many discovered that it had been sold from under them and they had little chance to prove any title to it. Last year 20,000 were evicted, many forcibly by riot police and thugs, when compensation talks stalled. Another 70,000 are at risk.

The evictions turned corners of Phnom Penh into a battleground. Critics says Hun Sen resorted to the courts and to judges who have shown themselves less than independent.

The mayhem prompted the World Bank and other major international donors to take the unprecedented step of demanding that forced evictions be halted until a mechanism for resolving disputes was settled.

International opprobrium rankles. “The prime minister blames civil society for portraying the country in a poor light to the outside world,” said Theary Seng, whose leadership of the Centre for Social Development rights group is threatened in an apparently politically motivated court case. “But he’s to blame. Now with these court actions he’s shooting the messenger. The gains we made inching forward on our democratic journey are being undermined and the billions invested in it by the international community put in jeopardy.”