IAFgummersbach — May 06, 2010 — Sam Rainsy (Leader of the Sam Rainsy Party in Cambodia) in an Interview with Moritz Kleine-Brockhoff (FNF Project Director Malaysia, Cambodia and Myanmar).
Showing posts with label Authoritarian Hun Sen regime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Authoritarian Hun Sen regime. Show all posts
Monday, June 07, 2010
Friday, July 17, 2009
OPEN FORUM: Cambodia's return to its authoritarian past
Comrade Hun Sen (Photo: Reuters)Thursday, July 16, 2009
By Shalini Nataraj
San Francisco Chronicle
The Opinion Shop
At the same time that the Khmer Rouge trial is underway in Phnom Penh for atrocious human rights crimes committed 30 years ago, troubling signs are emerging today of another corrupt and authoritarian Cambodian government.
One Cambodian leader unwilling to tolerate the repression is Mu Sochua, a Parliamentarian in the opposition Sam Rainsy Party who previously held posts as Minister of Women's and Veteran's Affairs. Sochua, who is on the board of the Global Fund for Women based in San Francisco, started one of the first women's organizations in Cambodia and has done much to reduce the trafficking of women and girls.
In April, Prime Minister Hun Sen defamed Sochua, and in return for fighting back, she was stripped of her parliamentary immunity and ability to raise issues of transparency and human rights. Her lawyer, who now faces defamation charges, dropped her case so she faces trial next week with no legal representation. "Hun Sen has a long history of trying to muzzle Cambodia's political opposition and undermine the independence of the legal profession," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
I need to be allowed to do my job as an elected member of parliament," says Sochua, "I cannot do that if I am allowed no freedom of expression, and have to worry about every person I meet who might be harassed as a result of that meeting."
Last week, while in Cambodia, I asked Sochua why the government repression? Without censorship, Sochua said issues like rampant land grabs and the displacement of villagers would come to light. Since 2003, some 250,000 people have had their land seized, which, according to Sochua, the government is then selling to casinos.
Cheap labor and weak regulation make Cambodia attractive to foreign investment, such as the United States, which is the largest importer of garments from Cambodia. Sochua and I met with 50 members of a women's union, most under age 21, who work in factories where they live on less than $2 a day. We visited their living quarters where they live with up to three others in one-room apartments in buildings surrounded by open drains and garbage. They pay $20 a month for rent so they can send more money home, as they have become the sole breadwinners of rural families.
While Cambodians may not be suffering the massacres of past regimes, they are struggling under the weight of corrupt governments. The repression Mu Sochua faces is just one manifestation of this, and as the international community watches the trial of Cambodia's dark past, we must be watching as well the present government, in real-time.
Shalini Nataraj is the vice president of programs at the Global Fund for Women, the world's largest foundation supporting the advancement of women's human rights.
One Cambodian leader unwilling to tolerate the repression is Mu Sochua, a Parliamentarian in the opposition Sam Rainsy Party who previously held posts as Minister of Women's and Veteran's Affairs. Sochua, who is on the board of the Global Fund for Women based in San Francisco, started one of the first women's organizations in Cambodia and has done much to reduce the trafficking of women and girls.
In April, Prime Minister Hun Sen defamed Sochua, and in return for fighting back, she was stripped of her parliamentary immunity and ability to raise issues of transparency and human rights. Her lawyer, who now faces defamation charges, dropped her case so she faces trial next week with no legal representation. "Hun Sen has a long history of trying to muzzle Cambodia's political opposition and undermine the independence of the legal profession," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
I need to be allowed to do my job as an elected member of parliament," says Sochua, "I cannot do that if I am allowed no freedom of expression, and have to worry about every person I meet who might be harassed as a result of that meeting."
Last week, while in Cambodia, I asked Sochua why the government repression? Without censorship, Sochua said issues like rampant land grabs and the displacement of villagers would come to light. Since 2003, some 250,000 people have had their land seized, which, according to Sochua, the government is then selling to casinos.
Cheap labor and weak regulation make Cambodia attractive to foreign investment, such as the United States, which is the largest importer of garments from Cambodia. Sochua and I met with 50 members of a women's union, most under age 21, who work in factories where they live on less than $2 a day. We visited their living quarters where they live with up to three others in one-room apartments in buildings surrounded by open drains and garbage. They pay $20 a month for rent so they can send more money home, as they have become the sole breadwinners of rural families.
While Cambodians may not be suffering the massacres of past regimes, they are struggling under the weight of corrupt governments. The repression Mu Sochua faces is just one manifestation of this, and as the international community watches the trial of Cambodia's dark past, we must be watching as well the present government, in real-time.
Shalini Nataraj is the vice president of programs at the Global Fund for Women, the world's largest foundation supporting the advancement of women's human rights.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Soldiers' deaths could've been prevented [-The rise and authoritarian rule of "Hun Sen, Inc."]
October 22, 2008By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)
In Cambodia, known as the land of the gentle smile and big heart, the rise of totalitarianism in the form of Hun Sen, Inc. is threatening the people and the country. Sen's power grabs are ignored by the international community and sanctions are absent.
While looking backward to historical events does not move us forward, history tells us why we are where we are. Its lessons can guide our future.
Ironically, Hun Sen, Inc. was created as a result of the failure to implement the 1991 United Nations-sponsored Paris Peace Accords. In brief, the non-implementation left the Hanoi-backed runaway Khmer Rouge faction in complete control of Cambodia's institutions after Pol Pot was knocked out of power.
The Accords stipulated that a neutral interim government would be put in place until the "free and fair general elections" of 1993, and the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General was to promote and protect human rights in Cambodia.
The neutral interim authority was never established.
I am reminded of a column in the New York Times two decades earlier by former Khmer diplomat Pheach Srey, who asked if replacing the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge by the Vietnam-installed regime, in which current Premier Sen was then a Khmer Rouge regional commander, was not the same as asking Cambodians to choose between "the plague and cholera."
Despite Cambodia's declining rate of economic growth from 10.1 percent in 2007 to 7.2 percent in 2008, and a crippling rate of inflation, which rose from 18.7 percent in January to a record high of 22 percent in July, and reported famine around the Tonle Sap Great Lake, Sen's Cambodia has ended forced labor camps and built roads. The newly rich populate the cities and resorts with large villas, and in this environment, many Cambodians report in recent polls that they feel the country is headed in "the right direction."
But Hun Sen, Inc. has grown so powerful that it has sidelined competitors, eliminated potential threats, and has established itself as the only source of employment. Without shame and at a cost to the struggle for freedom and human integrity, some members and leaders of the opposition parties have left those ranks for jobs in Hun Sen, Inc., which has become the only center for allocation of resources in the country.
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge gang crushed the soul, killed and mutilated the bodies of Cambodians to stay in power and to transform society. Hun Sen, Inc. may not be using the same brutal methods as his predecessors, but Hun Sen and his associates maintain unrelenting control of the land and the people. It can provide anything, for a price. It sells islands and beaches. It helps evict people from their homes and their land.
On Oct. 17, the Asian Human Rights Commission reported Hun Sen, Inc., which has leased out Phnom Penh's Boeung Kak Lake to a private company for development for 99 years for $79 million, has flooded homes and turned off the area's fresh water supply, forcing thousands of families to leave the area.
Hun Sen, Inc. had made life so impossible for former Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General Yash Ghai to do his job effectively that Ghai was obliged to resign his post. ABC Radio Australia reported Ghai's words on Oct. 3, "My deep conviction is that the (Cambodian) government has absolutely no interest in the promotion of human rights; the whole state exists on systematic violations of political, economic, social rights ... And I really can't see that there is going to be any change of heart just because there is a new representative."
When dictators rule, they don't act responsibly. So irresponsible was Hun Sen, Inc. that it chose to put the nation in danger when Sen vowed on Oct. 3 to turn 1.8 square miles of disputed land surrounding Preah Vihear Temple into a "death zone" if the 84 Thai soldiers "camping" some 30 meters from Sen's troops in Veal Entry did not leave the area in 24 hours.
Nationalism was whipped to a frenzy on both sides of the border. Nationalists from Thailand and Cambodia vowed to die to keep the Temple theirs. Yet the Temple Preah Vihear was already Khmer by history, and legally, with the 1962 verdict of the International Court of Justice. There are recourses other than a "death zone."
On Oct. 15 a firefight broke out between the two forces. After three Cambodian soldiers were killed and several soldiers from both sides were wounded, Thai Premier Wongsawat declared it his policy "to resolve this conflict through negotiations." The author of the "death zone" maintained silence, but Sen's foreign minister's statement says the fighting incident was actually "not an invasion by Thailand." In the field, Cambodian and Thai commanders held a five-hour talk that left troops from both sides where they are. Back to square one.
Nationalist Cambodians, quick at professing undying love to protect the Motherland, need to put a brake on Hun Sen, Inc. The deaths at Preah Vihear could have been prevented.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
While looking backward to historical events does not move us forward, history tells us why we are where we are. Its lessons can guide our future.
Ironically, Hun Sen, Inc. was created as a result of the failure to implement the 1991 United Nations-sponsored Paris Peace Accords. In brief, the non-implementation left the Hanoi-backed runaway Khmer Rouge faction in complete control of Cambodia's institutions after Pol Pot was knocked out of power.
The Accords stipulated that a neutral interim government would be put in place until the "free and fair general elections" of 1993, and the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General was to promote and protect human rights in Cambodia.
The neutral interim authority was never established.
I am reminded of a column in the New York Times two decades earlier by former Khmer diplomat Pheach Srey, who asked if replacing the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge by the Vietnam-installed regime, in which current Premier Sen was then a Khmer Rouge regional commander, was not the same as asking Cambodians to choose between "the plague and cholera."
Despite Cambodia's declining rate of economic growth from 10.1 percent in 2007 to 7.2 percent in 2008, and a crippling rate of inflation, which rose from 18.7 percent in January to a record high of 22 percent in July, and reported famine around the Tonle Sap Great Lake, Sen's Cambodia has ended forced labor camps and built roads. The newly rich populate the cities and resorts with large villas, and in this environment, many Cambodians report in recent polls that they feel the country is headed in "the right direction."
But Hun Sen, Inc. has grown so powerful that it has sidelined competitors, eliminated potential threats, and has established itself as the only source of employment. Without shame and at a cost to the struggle for freedom and human integrity, some members and leaders of the opposition parties have left those ranks for jobs in Hun Sen, Inc., which has become the only center for allocation of resources in the country.
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge gang crushed the soul, killed and mutilated the bodies of Cambodians to stay in power and to transform society. Hun Sen, Inc. may not be using the same brutal methods as his predecessors, but Hun Sen and his associates maintain unrelenting control of the land and the people. It can provide anything, for a price. It sells islands and beaches. It helps evict people from their homes and their land.
On Oct. 17, the Asian Human Rights Commission reported Hun Sen, Inc., which has leased out Phnom Penh's Boeung Kak Lake to a private company for development for 99 years for $79 million, has flooded homes and turned off the area's fresh water supply, forcing thousands of families to leave the area.
Hun Sen, Inc. had made life so impossible for former Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General Yash Ghai to do his job effectively that Ghai was obliged to resign his post. ABC Radio Australia reported Ghai's words on Oct. 3, "My deep conviction is that the (Cambodian) government has absolutely no interest in the promotion of human rights; the whole state exists on systematic violations of political, economic, social rights ... And I really can't see that there is going to be any change of heart just because there is a new representative."
When dictators rule, they don't act responsibly. So irresponsible was Hun Sen, Inc. that it chose to put the nation in danger when Sen vowed on Oct. 3 to turn 1.8 square miles of disputed land surrounding Preah Vihear Temple into a "death zone" if the 84 Thai soldiers "camping" some 30 meters from Sen's troops in Veal Entry did not leave the area in 24 hours.
Nationalism was whipped to a frenzy on both sides of the border. Nationalists from Thailand and Cambodia vowed to die to keep the Temple theirs. Yet the Temple Preah Vihear was already Khmer by history, and legally, with the 1962 verdict of the International Court of Justice. There are recourses other than a "death zone."
On Oct. 15 a firefight broke out between the two forces. After three Cambodian soldiers were killed and several soldiers from both sides were wounded, Thai Premier Wongsawat declared it his policy "to resolve this conflict through negotiations." The author of the "death zone" maintained silence, but Sen's foreign minister's statement says the fighting incident was actually "not an invasion by Thailand." In the field, Cambodian and Thai commanders held a five-hour talk that left troops from both sides where they are. Back to square one.
Nationalist Cambodians, quick at professing undying love to protect the Motherland, need to put a brake on Hun Sen, Inc. The deaths at Preah Vihear could have been prevented.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
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