Defense Chief ‘Disappointed’ in Loss of US Aid

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
06 April 2010

Cambodia’s top military leader expressed disappointment Thursday with a US decision to suspend a shipment of military aid as retribution for the expulsion of 20 Uighurs from the country in December.

The US announced last week it would halt the shipment of 200 trucks to the military because Cambodia had violated its international obligations by deporting the Uighurs, who had sought political asylum from China.

“When [the aid was] about to come, there was a suspension, or freezing, that’s the issue,” Defense Minister Tea Banh told VOA Khmer Monday. “Some issues are unrelated, but then they affect smooth cooperation, and that’s what has caused us to be disappointed.”

Cambodia and the US only recently patched up their military relations, with direct US aid resuming in 2007. Such aid had been suspended for a decade following a 1997 coup d’etat that put Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in power.

Cambodia has meanwhile become a willing ally in the US effort to disrupt international terrorism and has allowed an FBI attache to operate at the US Embassy. The US will also aid Cambodia in a regional military exercise later this year.

Tea Banh said Monday such a rapid suspension in aid was not good for either country, and he said the Uighur issue was separate from defense issues.

Scot Marciel, who is in charge of Asia affairs for the US State Department, told a conference Friday the aid had been suspended as a “clear message” to countries that they must honor their international obligations and commitments.

The US had tried at high levels to stop the deportation of the Muslim Uighurs, Marciel said.

The group had fled unrest in their home province of Xinjiang but had been branded criminals by Chinese officials.

Twenty were deported just one day ahead of the visit of a senior Chinese official and the announcement of $1.2 billion of Chinese aid to Cambodia. And while two of the Uighurs escaped and remain at large, the fates of the 20 who were expelled remains unclear.

The Chinese government has tried nearly 200 Uighurs following anti-Chinese protests and rioting in Xinjiang in July 2009, and an untold number have been executed as a result.

The suspension of aid means Cambodia committed a wrongful act according to international law, said Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

“This can be seen as a warning or as reflecting the displeasure of the US for such a deed,” he said.

Tough Love: CCHR commends US decision to cancel shipment of military vehicles

Cambodian Center for Human Rights

PRESS RELEASE
Phnom Penh, 6 April 2010

Tough Love:
CCHR commends US decision to cancel shipment of military vehicles, calls on international community to use leverage to promote and protect human rights in Cambodia

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) welcomes the decision by the United States (“US”) to suspend a military shipment of 200 vehicles to Cambodia, following the deportation by the Royal Government of Cambodia (“RGC”) of 20 ethnic Uyghurs to the People’s Republic of China (“China”) in December 2009. The CCHR commends the US’s stance and calls on all countries that value democracy and human rights to use their leverage to promote and protect human rights in Cambodia.

The US was following up on its promise that there would be consequences to the RGC’s decision to deport the Uyghurs before the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”) in Cambodia had completed its assessment of their refugee status. The Uyghurs were deported to China days before an announcement was made that the government of China and the RGC had concluded an agreement that included an aid and soft loans package reported to be worth US$1.2 billion. It is widely considered that the Uyghurs are likely to be subject to ill-treatment or worse in China. The deportation of the Uyghurs takes on an added poignancy when considered in light of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Cambodians sought and received refuge in other countries in the late 1970s and 1980s.

The RGC has stated that it is unconcerned by the US military sanction. This response echoes the RGC’s recent reaction to the call by the United Nations (“UN”) for sufficient time for consideration of and debate on the new anti-corruption law: the RGC described these comments as “interference” and threatened to expel the UN Resident Coordinator. CCHR President Ou Virak commented: “The international community should not be bullied by the RGC, buoyed as it is by unconditional aid from countries that have little concern for human rights at home let alone in Cambodia. The RGC needs foreign aid, trade and investment to develop and rule Cambodia. Those countries that value democracy and human rights and care about safeguarding the fundamental freedoms of the Cambodian people are therefore in a strong position to speak out when these freedoms are threatened, and put real conditions on their dealings with Cambodia that encourage the RGC to respect human rights. Ou Virak added: “As respect for civil and political rights in Cambodia deteriorates and land grabbing resulting in mass displacement continues unabated, history could judge silence and inaction as complicity.”

The CCHR calls on the RGC to honour its international and constitutional obligations to respect human rights. Further, the CCHR urges the international community – including those signatories to the Paris Peace Agreements that have undertaken to “promote and encourage respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cambodia” – to take a tougher line on imposing human rights conditions on aid and to speak out when the RGC fails to respect human rights.

For more information, please contact:
Mr. Ou Virak, President, CCHR
Tel: +855 12 404051
Email: ouvirak@cchrcambodia.org

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Grapes Are Too Green

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

"If the US gives us the equipment, we are happy. And if they won't give it to us, it is also good": Khieu Kanharith

Cambodia shrugs at US punishment over Uighurs

04/02/2010
Agence France-Presse

PHNOM PENH--The Cambodian government on Friday said it was untroubled by a US refusal to send military aid to the Southeast Asian nation as punishment for its deportation of 20 Chinese Uighurs.

The US stopped a shipment of 200 military trucks and trailers on Thursday in response to Phnom Penh's controversial December deportation of the ethnic Uighur asylum seekers to China, where they said they would face torture.

Nations and rights groups deplored Cambodia's move to expel the Uighurs, who had been labelled "criminals" by Beijing after fleeing China's far western Xinjiang region following violent clashes with the majority Han.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said his country was not concerned by the cancelled donation of surplus US military supplies, part of an American aid programme.

"If the US gives us the equipment, we are happy. And if they won't give it to us, it is also good," he told AFP.

"There will be no effect to our military work," the spokesman added, saying that the UN refugee agency had been too slow in assessing the Uighurs' claim to refugee status.

The decision to deport the Uighurs came a day ahead of a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, during which he agreed 1.2 billion dollars in aid and loans to Cambodia with Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Clashes between Xinjiang's Uighurs and China's majority Han ethnic group in July left nearly 200 dead and 1,600 injured, according to official tolls.

The US State Department in its last annual human rights report said that China was stepping up cultural and political repression against Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Cambodia bristles at US aid cut over deportations

Friday, April 02, 2010
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia bristled Friday at a U.S. decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.

The United States announced Thursday it had suspended the program that supplied surplus trucks and trailers. It was a response to Cambodia's deportation of the 20 Uighurs who had fled ethnic violence last year in China's far west. China accused the Uighurs of involvement in the violence.

The suspension involves about 200 vehicles supplied directly to the Cambodian military and does not affect the roughly $60 million civilian aid program to Cambodia, said U.S. Embassy spokesman John Johnson.

In statements to the U.N. refugee agency, the Uighurs said they witnessed and documented the July rioting in the Xinjiang region between their minority group and majority Han Chinese and that they feared lengthy imprisonment or even the death penalty if they were returned to China. It was China's worst ethnic violence in decades.

"These Uighurs were not real political asylum seekers," said Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith. "If they were real political asylum seekers, the United States could have granted them asylum in the U.S."

"We're happy if the United States provides us with aid, but it's their right to suspend it," he said.

China had called the group criminals and presented Cambodia with arrest warrants, the spokesman said. Cambodia said it deported the group because they had entered the country illegally.

"Cambodia couldn't refuse the request from China to deport them, because China sent us arrest warrants," Khieu Kanharith said.

China is key ally and donor to impoverished Cambodia.

Days after the deportations, China announced a $1.2 billion aid package to Cambodia. China has denied the aid was linked to politics saying it came with "no strings attached."

The group of Uighurs had made the journey from China's far west through to Vietnam and then Cambodia with the help of a network of missionary groups.

The U.S., the U.N. and several rights groups had urged Cambodia not to deport the group. Following the deportations, the U.S. said it was "deeply disturbed" and that the incident would affect Cambodia's relationship with the United States.

China has not revealed the fate of the deportees.

Overseas activist groups say Uighurs in China have been rounded up in mass detentions since the summer's violence that killed about 200 people in Xinjiang. Almost 200 people have been tried and several dozen death sentences have been handed down, although authorities haven't said how many people have been executed.

Cambodia shrugs off U.S. halting shipments of military trucks

April 02, 2010
Source: Xinhua

Cambodia shrugged off U.S. suspended shipments of 200 military trucks over retaliation of Cambodia's deportation of Chinese asylum seekers last year.

Koy Kong, spokesman for Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that Cambodia has her full sovereignty to implement its policy in deporting the illegal 20 Chinese Uighur asylum seekers back to China in December last year.

"It is the rights of U.S. government to either donate or suspend such assistance. Cambodia is implementing its own policy and laws within the frameworks of full sovereignty," Koy Kong told Xinhua.

"That means U.S. can implement their policy and we can implement ours."

Foreign media quoting United States Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States informed Cambodia last month that it was suspending the shipment of 200 military trucks and trailers as a consequence of Cambodia's December decision on the illegal Chinese Uighur asylum seekers.

The US has no plan to provide aid for the KR Tribunal

27 March 2008
By San Suwidh
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

The US has not plan to help the KR Tribunal yet. Meanwhile an ECCC delegation is now in New York City to try to find additional budget from the UN for completing the judgment of the former KR leaders still alive.

The ECCC delegation includes Sean Visoth, the ECCC administrative director, Dr. Helen Jarvis, the ECCC director of public affairs, and Thong Socheat, the ECCC national director of finance and budget.

Regarding the ECCC delegation mission in New York, Joseph Mussomeli, US Ambassador to Cambodia, said that this shows that the Cambodian government and the KR Tribunal are making big progress in its work. However, the US has no plan to provide aid for the KR Tribunal yet.

Mussomeli indicated that Cambodia is confident that it will receive aid from other friendly countries: “Based on our understanding, the Cambodian government is very confident that it will find sufficient funds from friendly countries. The US has no plan to seek budget to help the KR (Tribunal) work at this point in time.”