Sam Rainsy's message to CPP activists

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Translated from Khmer

Message by Mr. Sam Rainsy, President of the Sam Rainsy Party
To All CPP Party Members

Respected and Beloved Brothers and Sisters,

Recently, the CPP Vice-President, who is also the Prime Minister, has been working very actively to attract SRP members to join the CPP.

Using money as bait, he was only able to attract a small number of people who were willing to sell their conscience to serve their personal interest. The CPP gave out huge cash prizes to those who defect the SRP to join the CPP, the minimum of which amounted to at least US $2,000 (more then 8 million riels). Some of those who held high ranking positions within the SRP prior to their defection received up to $200,000 (more than 800 million riels).

Furthermore, the recent SRP defectors were also offered positions as advisors to the Prime Minister with a rank equivalent to that of a minister, or government advisors with a rank equivalent to that of a government secretary of state or under-secretary of state. These positions allow these defectors to further indulge in corruption – as is the norm in the current government – earning them several tens of thousands of additional dollars.

It is really strange that the CPP highly values the recent SRP defectors who joint the CPP. Quite to the contrary, ordinary CPP members, like yourself, no CPP leaders came to offer any financial support amounting to tens of thousands of dollars to any of you at all. To the CPP officials at the grass root levels, such village chiefs, commune councilors, office chiefs, etc…, no CPP leaders ever thought of offering any of you a position of advisor to the prime minister, or government advisor, or under-secretary of state at all.

The actions undertaken by the CPP leaders clearly show that:

• They do not value you who have served and supported the CPP for many long years.
• They only value SRP members because they recognize that the SRP is highly valuable, because the SRP has high ideals and the number of its supporters is constantly growing.
• They use money to serve their personal interest and they do not care about your feelings.

I am therefore calling all CPP party members, who are nationalist and who love justice, to come and join the SRP, a party which encourages you the people, unlike the CPP whih can only use money to buy people to perpetrate bad deeds.

We must all unite to defend the interest of the entire Cambodian people, in order to provide a good living condition for the Cambodian people within a just society, and to eliminate corruption to achieve the following goals:

1. Providing secure jobs with appropriate income for the people, in particular for the youths,
2. Lower the price of market goods, in particular gasoline and fertilizers, and
3. Provide free healthcare.

As CPP party members, you also would like to see your children having a proper job with a decent salary. You are also victims of the current inflation, and in some instances, this condition almost causes famine among many villagers. You also face hardship when you are sick and you need to be hospitalized, but, you do not have money to pay the hospital bills and this situation makes you hopeless. More than 20 years have passed, and yet, the CPP did not resolve any of these problems. The new government led the Sam Rainsy Party will resolve all these problems properly, based on the goals described above, in order to serve the interest of all the Cambodian people.

Phnom Penh, 14 June 2008

Sam Rainsy
Sam Rainsy Party President