Pre-electoral window-dressing operation and instrument to eliminate rivals
By Khmer Observer
Sereyvuth Chan, a former prosecutor at the Pursat provincial court, was arrested and tried for corruption. The arrest of such a high ranking personality is a first breaking new since the adoption of the Anti-Corruption Law on March 11, 2010
But the question is how far Hun Sen is willing to go in implementing this law? In other words, the application of this law, in this present case, would not it be both an instrument for eliminating undesirable elements and internal purge, and an operation of pre-electoral window-dressing operation to woo voters for the elections in 2012?
[KI-Media Note: Potemkin villages or Potyomkin villages (Russian: Потёмкинские деревни) is an idiom based on a historical myth. According to the myth, there were fake settlements purportedly erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potyomkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potyomkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes]
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Potemkin graft crackdown in Cambodia
Jun 11, 2011
By Sebastian Strangio
Asia Times
Carl Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Sydney, said the CPP has long been plagued by factional divisions, including between a group loyal to Hun Sen and another linked to aging CPP President and Senate President Chea Sim. He said that until recently the two factions had reached a stable modus vivendi, but since the defeat of its long-time royalist foe Funcinpec in the 2008 national election, the CPP has begun to rearrange itself along factional fault lines.
PHNOM PENH - On the morning of May 12, Cambodia's local newspapers ran photos of a bedraggled figure being escorted from a small courthouse. The man, who wore a crumpled green shirt and clutched a water bottle as he leant on the shoulder of a security guard, was Top Chan Sereyvuth, a former prosecutor at the Pursat provincial court in the country's west.
During his trial, it was alleged he had ordered subordinates to extort money from a man found transporting wood through his province - just one in a long line of corrupt dealings. On May 11, judges at the court found him guilty on corruption charges and handed him a 19-year jail term. Two of his bodyguards were also sent down for 15 and 16 years respectively.
The Cambodian government welcomed Sereyvuth's conviction as the first high-profile case to be brought by its new Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), formed last year following the passage of long-awaited anti-graft legislation. While observers were initially divided about the government's commitment to fighting corruption, the ACU has so far netted some big fish.
In January, Sereyvuth was joined in custody by Moek Dara, secretary general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), and Hun Hean, the police chief of Banteay Meanchey province in northwest Cambodia . Observers began to speak of a coordinated crackdown.
"Our government has made a strong effort to crack down on all bad activity," said Phay Siphan, spokesman of the Council of Ministers. "Everyone has to be behind one regulation together, no matter the color of their party, no matter what their position." Moek Dara is accused of leading a ring of corrupt officials involved in extortion and drug trafficking. Hun Hean and his deputy Chhieng Son are also being held on drug charges.
