Khmer Intelligence News - 14 July 2007

Khmer Rouge Tribunal will not really start before the death of Nuon Chea (2)

The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) will continue to use different tricks to block the newly-formed Khmer Rouge Tribunal, which could start to effectively and significantly move forward only after the death of Nuon Chea, who is now 82-year-old and seriously ill. Known also as "Brother number 2", Nuon Chea could reveal facts showing the involvement of some high-ranking officials of the current government in the mass killings perpetrated under the Pol Pot regime.

A possible but not credible president for the Anti Corruption Commission (2)

Bin Chhin, former president of the Constitutional Council and a member of the CPP Permanent Committee, could be appointed president of the to-be-formed National Anti Corruption Commission, pending the adoption by the National Assembly of the long-awaited Anti Corruption Law.

Second step in the disenfranchisement of non-CPP voters (2)

To secure landslide election victories before voting day, the ruling CPP is implementing a two-step strategy based on manipulation of voter list:

1- Preventing non-CPP supporters from casting their ballots:

At the 1 April 2007 commune council election, with the full support of the National Election Committee (NEC) and the Interior Ministry that controls all the village chiefs, the CPP succeeded in preventing some 2 million "suspicious" potential voters (25 percent of the electorate) from casting their ballots. The techniques used against those perceived as non-CPP supporters included confiscation or retention of voter identification documents, administrative harassment, withholding of accurate/relevant information and dissemination of false/misleading information, intimidating and/or paying people not to go to vote.

2- Deleting the names of non-CPP supporters from the voter list:

For the upcoming 27 July 2008 national election, the CPP is trying to delete from the voter list the names of citizens identified by CPP-affiliated village chiefs as non-CPP supporters. In every commune, starting 12 July 2007, the voter list is going through a "cleaning" process whereby the commune authorities are supposed to delete the names of people who are "dead", "unknown", "cannot be found", "have already been registered", "have moved out of the commune", or are "foreigners with no voting right." Actually and more importantly, by using the pretexts "unknown", "cannot be found", and "have moved" put forward by village chiefs, the commune authorities are deleting the names of those perceived as non-CPP supporters. Therefore, through this "cleaning" process, the CPP and the NEC are legalizing and making permanent the political exclusion of those who were not able to vote on 1 April 2007 for artificial reasons (see point 1 above).

Read protest letter and suggestions in English from the parliamentary opposition to the UNDP by clicking here.

Salaries suspended for VOD employees (2)

According to a July 5 statement by the Truth Committee founded by former employees of the embattled Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), employees of Voice of Democracy (VOD) -- a radio program run for a long time by the CCHR -- have not been paid for two months (May and June). The financial trouble is reportedly due to corruption and embezzlement when the CCHR was led by Kem Sokha, who now leads the Human Rights Party (HRP). Kem Sokha was summoned by the Court on June 28 but has asked to appear before the Court only after a HRP congress on July 22.

Read statement by the Truth Committee in Khmer by clicking here.

Read related press article in Khmer by clicking here.

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Khmer Intelligence News - 01 June 2007

01 June 2007

Voice of Democracy to stop its programs (1)

Voice of Democracy (VOD), initially a department of the US-funded Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), will stop all its programs after 30 September 2007. According to the Truth Committee formed by former CCHR employees, funding for CCHR has dried up since 01 May 2007. A recent statement by the Truth Committee points to "the dishonesty of [former CCHR president] Kem Sokha, who abused his position as leader of an NGO [so as to serve his] personal interest and [to pursue a] hidden political agenda under the banner of human rights." The Truth Committee, which includes renowned journalists and lawyers, accuses Kem Sokha of corruption and has filed a lawsuit against him for breach of trust. Click here to read the statement in Khmer.

CPP electorate shrinking (2)

At the recent 2007 commune election, the CPP collected 61 percent of the vote (3.1 million ballots out of a total of 5.1 million valid ballots). Officials from the ruling party claim that this result is as good as the outcome for the 2002 commune election, which also showed 61 percent of the vote going to CPP (2.7 million ballots out of a total of 4.4 million valid ballots). However, there is a big difference between the two elections. In 2002, voter turnout was 87 percent (4.5 million actual voters for 5.2 citizens/potential voters). In 2007, voter turnout dropped to 65 percent ( 5.1 million voters for 7.8 million citizens). This year, 2.7 million potential voters were discarded from the election process (versus 0.7 million five years ago) as a result of a deliberate policy by the CPP-controlled National Election Committee to disenfranchise non-CPP voters. If an additional 2.0 million non-CPP voters were actually included in the electorate, the CPP would have collected only 44 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 61 percent obtained in 2002. At the 2003 legislative election, the CPP share of the electorate had already dropped to 47 percent.

Click here for more information on manipulation of voter list and disfranchisement of non-CPP voters.

Suspicious role of You Hockry in the NRP (3)

Some officials of the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) express their concern that their newly appointed Secretary-General You Hockry might be a spy for the CPP, whose role would be to manipulate and control their party from within. After the 1997 coup d'état, then Funcinpec Co-Interior Minister You Hockry did not leave the country with the rest of the Funcinpec leadership loyal to Prince Norodom Ranariddh, but chose to remain in Cambodia where he maintained a suspicious relationship with CPP Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, at a time when Funcinpec First Prime Minister Ung Huot had already sold out to the CPP.

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CCHR and VOD receive another blow after Kem Sokha's departure

IRI to cut all aid to CCHR

01 May 2007
By Huy Vannak
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

A high-ranking official from the International Republican Institute (IRI) told RFA on Tuesday that IRI decided to cut all the funds it provides to the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) at the end of May, and that it will fund the Voice of Democracy (VOD) radio only until September 2007.

IRI’s decision to cut all the funding took place after the departure of Kem Sokha, former CCHR President, to form his own political party, and also after the splitting of CCHR into two institutions: CCHR under the leadership of Ou Virak, and VOD under the leadership of Pa Nguon Tieng.

Regarding this issue, one official indicated that one reason for the end of the funding is because IRI itself is facing a decrease in its own funding. He also indicated that the IRI will review its decision to cut or continue funding the VOD.

Nevertheless, Ou Virak, CCHR President, claimed that his organization still receives a lot support from other aid organizations.

Pa Nguon Tieng, the VOD leader, discussed his strategy to guarantee the continuity of VOD by saying: “The first strategy is to regroup human resources in answer to the various requests made by fund providers. We don’t want to depend on a single funding source, we will expand our funding sources. Our second strategy consists of strengthening our particular strength, because for VOD, our main target is information, and in the past, VOD was successful in providing independent information.”