Donors urged to confront Cambodian abuses

Disturbing pattern ... Mam Sonando, centre, a prominent critic of Cambodia's government was sentenced to 20 years jail Monday for an alleged secessionist plot, dismaying rights campaigners who said the verdict was politically motivated. Photo: AFP

Cambodian protesters shout slogans next to a portrait of Mam Sonando on Monday. Photo: AFP

October 2, 2012
Lindsay Murdoch in Bangkok
The Sydney Morning Herald

Donor countries including Australia are being urged to confront Cambodia over escalating violence and human abuses linked to the plunder of the country's natural resources.

Human Rights groups say the jailing of 71-year-old journalist Mam Sonando for 20 years late on Monday was a politically motivated move to silence protests over the granting of huge economic land resources to companies and the eviction of thousands of land owners by force.

Mr Sonando, a long-time human rights campaigner who owns a radio station in Phnom Penh, has been a long-time critic of strongman Prime Minister Hen Sen who urged in a national broadcast in June that he be arrested for masterminding "a plot to overthrow the government."

There have been at least three deaths and a number of controversial arrests linked to a rapidly increasing number of land disputes that have emerged as companies move to exploit Cambodia's natural resources such as rubber, sugar and minerals.

Eight human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Global Witness and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, have asked donors providing almost half of Cambodia's annual budget not to reward the country with large-scale new funds and to "make a co-ordinated and public condemnation of the government's increasing human rights abuses."

Australia is sending almost $78 million to Cambodia this year.

Surya Subedi, the UN Human Rights Councils' special envoy for Cambodia, last week criticised Mr Hun Sen's government, saying Cambodia's population was growing "increasingly desperate and unhappy" over land-rights abuses.

The World Bank also last year froze new lending for Cambodia over its treatment of hundreds of families facing eviction from land around a lake in Phnom Penh.

The jailing of Mr Sonando, who is unwell, has prompted outrage both inside and outside the country where critics accuse Mr Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985, of having politicised the bureaucracy and courts to silence public criticism.

Rights groups called the accusations against Mr Sonando baseless and said the government was seeking to justify a crackdown on a land dispute in May when a 14-year-old girl was shot dead by security forces during a protest rally.

Mr Sonando had played a leading role in the dispute in Krabie province and through his independent Beehive Radio had spoken out against human rights abuses, including those associated with the rapid selloff of Cambodia's land and forests to investors.

He had also reported on a complaint lodged at the International Criminal Court alleging land-grabbing in Cambodia amounted to a crime against humanity.

The court on Monday also sent two other activists to 30 and 15 years in jail.

Ou Virak, president of Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, described Mr Sonando as a prisoner of conscience and said "we will be campaigning for his release."

Amnesty International researcher Rupert Abbott called the verdict "absolutely outrageous."

Earlier this month Cambodian journalist Serei Oudom, who had exposed rampant illegal logging, was found dead in the boot of his car.

In April Chut Wutty, one of Asia's leading environmentalists, was shot dead by a soldier after leading journalists to an illegal logging site.

In a joint letter to donor countries, the rights groups detailed the arrests of four other prominent activists who had led protests against forced land evictions who face long jail sentences under laws which they say are contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The letter said the serious downturn in Cambodia's human rights situation comes as Cambodia seeks a seat on the UN Security Council and chairs the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations which is set adopt a Human Rights Declaration at its November leaders' summit that will water down human rights protections, compromising the rights of more than 600 million people across the region.