Doubts over Hun Sen's modest salary claims

Can you trust this comrade?

April 5, 2011
ABC Radio Australia

Non-government groups say the Cambodian Prime Minister's comments about his relatively modest salary don't tell the full story about his wealth.

More than 100,000 state officials and heads of civilian organisations are required to declare their property, vehicles, business interests and other assets under the anti-graft law, passed in 2010. On the first of April, Prime Minister Hun Sen declared his assets to the country's new Anti-Corruption Unit.

Under the law, that declaration remains confidential... However, afterwards, Hun Sen told reporters he earned a monthly salary of 1,150 US dollars. The comments were criticised by Mam Sitha, president of the non-governmental group, Cambodia Independent Anti-Corruption Committee, who said there was an "imbalance between the size of his salary and his current wealth."

Presenter: Liam Cochrane

Speaker: George Boden, Global Witness campaigner

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

BODEN: Ahh I think it would be very difficult to believe that Hun Sen and his family were only living off the wages that he declared to reporters recently. I think that'd be unrealistic and certainly looking at some of his assets and some of the things that he's known to have, he seems to have a lot more wealth than that. I think one of the biggest concerns about the assets that he actually declared in his declaration, they don't include a whole series of different things, so money in foreign bank accounts etc., I don't think would be disclosed in that kind of disclosure. And even if he did disclose it, nobody has access to that asset declaration anyhow, so it would be very difficult to ascertain the information.

COCHRANE: You're talking about bank accounts offshore?

BODEN: Certainly we don't know, it's important to state that as an organisation although we've managed to ascertain some of the business interests of people very close to Hun Sen, we've never found any revelations that was explicitly about him. But my point is more general in that the asset declarations for senior officials and other officials required to declare, doesn't necessarily include all of the ways that people can keep money. So it might include houses and salaries for example, it wouldn't necessarily include all of the bank account information. So it's not a true and accurate picutre of the entire wealth of an individual.

COCHRANE: Has there ever been an estimate as to Hun Sen's wealth or earning capabilities?

BODEN: I have heard informally, a rumour that certainly he's worth if not hundreds of millions, I think I've even heard a billion. But I think he's very, very wealthy and I think it would be very difficult given the way that the people, that that amount of money it's just incredibly difficult to get an idea. But I think it's fair to say that he certainly seems to have a lot more than the one-thousand dollars a month that he claims.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Anti-Corruption Council

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

CPP anti-graft body to investigate CPP corruption? Dream on!

Tob Sam

Cambodia unveils anti-graft body

Jun 15, 2010
Reuters

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA unveiled the make-up of an anti-corruption body on Tuesday but critics doubted the effectiveness of an anti-graft panel many of whose members are from the ruling party.

Cambodia invariably appears near the bottom of any list of countries with corruption problems, coming 158th out of 180 in the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International's 2009 ranking.

Corruption is a major worry for both foreign investors and the aid donors that keep afloat a country still dealing with the legacy of decades of conflict including the communist Khmer Rouge 'Killing Fields' rule.

'From now on, the mechanism to fight corruption is created and this event is considered historic for the Kingdom of Cambodia,' Top Sam told a news conference after being elected chairman of the National Council for Anti-Corruption.

Asked how the council could fight corruption when many of its 11 members were from the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Mr Top Sam said everyone had to obey the law.

The council has been set up under an anti-graft law adopted in March amid protests by rights groups and opposition politicians who said it would entrench official corruption. Mr Om Yentieng told the news conference the unit would be hiring 120 members of staff over the next few months and investigations had already begun into illegal logging and other crimes.

SRP accuses CPP of ‘making up’ defections

Monday, 26 April 2010
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

“I think the CPP is finding it hard to attract villagers who have been affected by land grabbing, illegal logging, forced evictions and the loss of territory to Vietnam, so therefore they have to make up reports about defections in order to decrease the popularity of the SRP” - Yim Sovann

HUNDREDS of former opposition party members have defected to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), Takeo provincial Governor Srey Ben said Sunday, a claim denied by opposition lawmakers.

Srey Ben said the CPP had held a ceremony on Sunday to inaugurate 447 new members who formerly belonged to the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and Human Rights Party (HRP).

“It is normal for the CPP to inaugurate new members into the party, and it is nothing to be surprised about,” Srey Ben said.

However, HRP president Kem Sokha dismissed the governor’s statements, saying that dubious reports of defections of opposition members were “nothing new”.

“It is nothing to be concerned about, because there is no report of our activists defecting to the CPP,” Kem Sokha said.

SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said that the SRP had contacted its members in Takeo and had received no reports of defections.

He also disputed statements by Hem Heng, the Cambodian ambassador to the United States, who told Radio Free Asia last week that between 400 and 500 Cambodian-American SRP members had defected to the CPP during the Khmer New Year holiday earlier this month.

“We have contacted our members in Takeo and in the US, and there are no members of the SRP who have defected to the CPP,” Yim Sovann said, accusing ruling party officials of “making up defections to satisfy their party leaders”.

“I think the CPP is finding it hard to attract villagers who have been affected by land grabbing, illegal logging, forced evictions and the loss of territory to Vietnam, so therefore they have to make up reports about defections in order to decrease the popularity of the SRP,” Yim Sovann said.

A press release issued Thursday by the North American chapter of the SRP called Hem Heng’s statements “political propaganda designed to fool people abroad and especially at home”.

US-based CACJE criticizes the arrest of bomb plot suspects in Phnom Penh

Suon Serey Ratha, CACJE leader

11 Jan 2009
By San Suwith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

On Sunday 11 January, the Cambodian Action Committee for Justice & Equity (CACJE) issued a statement indicating that the arrest of Som Ek aka Ty To aka Chau Sakada and the charge of bomb plot in Phnom Penh on 02 January, are new invention and subterfuge by the Phnom Penh regime which is known to set up movements or various events in order to bring charge against democrat and nationalist activists, by accusing the latter of terrorism.

The Cranston, Rhode Island, US-based CACJE led by Suon Serey Ratha cited as examples a number of past setup events to claim that this is another trick perpetrated by Hun Sen and the CPP in order to discourage nationalist Cambodians who dare to oppose the celebration of the 07 January, a date that the CPP always commemorates to express its gratefulness to Hanoi.

In conclusion, CACJE condemned the political setup and charges invented by the Phnom Penh regime to hide its ineptitude and the lengthening of the resolution on the border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, and its attempt to divert the public attention from the anarchic invasions of Cambodian sovereignty by Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.